Simple Homemade Christmas Ornaments to Make
With a little imagination and some low-cost supplies, you can make your own Christmas ornaments. While bought ornaments are fine, creating your own makes them uniquely yours. Here are some simple homemade Christmas ornaments to make that cost very little, do not take much time and can be turned into fun projects for both parents and children.
Santa Claus Reindeer
It would not be Christmas without Santa Claus reindeer and you can make your own using materials already on hand or a few that are easy to buy.
- Take the center cardboard from a toilet paper roll and stuff it full of tissue to give it support and strength
- Now cut some strips of brown felt out of an 8 1/2 in x 11 in pad. Spread a little glue around the roll and layer on the felt. Do not worry if it is not exactly flat. Deerskin is wrinkly near their arms, legs and neck anyway.
- For the head, you can use another roll cut to shape and glued to the body. Alternatively, you can use an ice cream stick to make a support for the neck, then bunch up some felt for the head and wrap it for the neck. Attach with glue.
- Then get some small black buttons for the eyes.
- Use brown or grey pipe cleaners for the legs and tail.
- To give the legs some thickness, just spiral the pipe cleaners around some brown tissue paper.
Christmas Eraser Mouse
Christmas mice are a tradition in stories. They always meander around looking for bits of cheese and listening to their grandparents tell stories of Christmas past. You can make some from bits of pencil eraser and hair.
- Save those old pencils or buy some inexpensive erasers from an art supply house or craft site.
- Shaping them into a little mouse is simple. All you have to do is tack several small ones together into a body and head. Alternatively, you can glue two larger ones together and shave the body into shape with a Xacto knife. Then do the same with the head.
- A little bit of wool will do nicely for tails and round confetti works great for eyes of all colors.
- Perhaps you can get grandpa or grandma to donate a little bit of hair to the project. You only need a couple dozen strands an inch long.
- With scissors, chop it up into small pieces. Then spray the mouse body with a little bit of glue and sprinkle on the hair.
- Let it dry and hang on the tree or set the mice on shelves.
Make a Bead Spider
A bag of glass or clear plastic beads from a craft store will get you started making your own bead spider to hang from the tree. Get the type that have holes through the center and simply string them along thin white pipe cleaners that you have shaped like a spider.
To make it extra secure you can spray the result with a little glue and let it dry before hanging. Then tie a piece of thread around the head and hang. Alternatively, for something a little more elaborate, make a small web from white thread. String it from one small branch to the next and set your spider in the center.
These are just three of the fun, inexpensive and easy to make Christmas ornaments that you can create. You can then hang them on the tree, from the fireplace mantel or set them in the windowsill. Have a great Christmas season.