Hey folks! We went a little overboard
on the homemade ornaments, so I'm excited to share with you what we
made so you can get some ideas too! I was both a little bummed and
happy when we had to throw the majority of our old ornaments away due
to a broken snow globe in the same box. Bummed because a lot of them
were SUPER old, but happy I had an excuse to make new ones! Let's
just say we have more than enough now!
Pour Paint-I can't remember if
someone sent this to me on Facebook or if I came across it on
Pinterest myself, but regardless, you can click on the title and it
will take you to the pin on my Pinterest account. We all love
anything to do with paint and I thought these looked neat and would
be easy for a 3 year old, and they were. You made need to help them
swirl the paint and let it drip out. I made the red, green, and white
one and Myka made the colorful one. Hubby made a couple as well, but
they didn't turn out how he wanted so he rinsed them out to start
over. I think Myka's actually turned out the best!
Assorted Clear Balls-Your
imagination is about your only limit when it comes to decorating the
clear plastic or glass balls you can find in craft stores or craft
sections at stores such as Walmart. Naturally, my 3 year old loves
glitter, so we mixed a little water and glue together, poured and
swirled it around the inside of the ball like the paint ones above,
then added glitter. It turned out ok, but I think I either added too
much water or should have used paint and glitter instead of glue and
water.
The one on the
right was super easy and, bonus, wasn't messy so we were able to do
it while sitting on the couch watching a movie together. Myka tore up
the green tissue paper and stuffed the bits in while I alternated
adding red tinsel. You can obviously let your kids do the tinsel too,
but I will admit it was a little tricky for me!
Beads, Beads, Beads!-Myka
enjoys beading now, but has a seemingly short attention span for it,
so these little candy canes were perfect. I cut a pipe cleaner in
half to make two. Put one bead on and fold the end over it. Continue
beading and repeat with the other end, attempting to get the pipe
cleaner end inside of the second to last bead so they don't start
falling off. These are quick and easy and you can bend them in
whatever shape you want!
Sparkly Stars-I
have a box hoarding problem on the very
off chance we get an Etsy store order. Needless to say, I have plenty
of cardboard hanging about. I hate the way my hand-drawn stars look,
so I printed a template and traced it onto either side of a box. You
can either use a sharp knife or scissors (I tried both and preferred
the scissors) to cut them out. I used a hole punch for the string
hole at the top.
Now for the fun part! Let your kids paint the stars and, making sure
to do so before the paint dries, add the glitter. (We use acrylic
paint for everything, so you shouldn't have to worry about the paint
drying quickly if you're using tempera or some other type of paint.)
Again, super easy and I think they're pretty!
Salt Dough-I
tried salt dough a few months ago and wasn't crazy about the recipe.
It seemed kind of hard to work with, even though I'd heard from
everyone that salt dough is usually easy to deal with. I came across
the one in the title link recently and decided to give it a try!
As you can see, it makes quite a lot if you decide to be lazy and use
cookie cutters like us. All three of us had fun painting them,
though, and, if you don't want that many, you can always give some as
gifts to family!
Lacing-We
actually made this apple several months ago when we were doing apples
for “school”, but I thought it would make a cute ornament, so I
hung on to it. You could totally make more “seasonally appropriate”
shapes, like Christmas trees, snowmen, mittens, etc. Simply cut out 2
of whatever object/shape you want, line them up, use a hole punch
(preferably) to punch holes along the edge, let your child “sew”
it up (leave a little room to stuff it), and finish it off by sewing
a few knots at the end. It sounds more difficult than it is!
Do you and your kids make homemade ornaments or other holiday
decorations?
