Easy DIY Christmas Decorations

Decorating for Christmas is exhausting. The decorations are up for only a short time, and take so long to pull out, unwrap, and put up, it's a wonder we still do it. Christmas decor is incredibly expensive as well. (However, pick up some for cheap at your local big box store either on Black Friday or the day after Christmas for a good deal.) Nothing beats making your own decorations though, and everyone in the family can be involved.

Christmas Ornaments

The internet is littered with ideas for handmade Christmas ornaments, but there are a few that are much better than the rest. Here are a few of the goodies: Some great tutorials are available online for these along with templates for cutting these pictures. Save your bottle caps, and any scraps of ribbon. I started a collection at the beginning of the year and used it to make some cool and funky ornaments for my family and friends. I wrap them onto the gift for decoration.

As kids, we would get a new ornament every year. On the back, my Mom would write our name and the year we got it. I recently got a few from my parents that were mine growing up. I love sentimental ornaments. If you have kids, I strongly suggest doing this so that your tree grows with your family, and the kids have ornaments when they move out. Clear ornaments are versatile. You can put anything in them and they look great. If you have some old ugly or chipping round ornaments, consider wrapping them in a cute piece of fabric to give them a new life. May things can be melted in forms to make ornaments; one great example is peppermints. (I save the ones I get from Sonic) Felt is a great thing to have around too. Felt is less than 25 cents a sheet, and as long as you have a needle and embroidery thread, you can make anything. YouTube has some amazing stitch tutorials. The older kids can even help cut out the shapes. Perhaps my favorite of all of these is the vintage button bulb. I know we all have that box of mis-matched old buttons. Make them into a beautiful ornament with a story.

Other Kid-Friendly Crafts

I don't have kids myself, but I have seen this first-hand. Kids tend to remove ornaments from the Christmas tree. A genius way to avoid this is to make them their own felt Christmas tree. Hopefully they will be occupied with the felt tree, and not the one with breakable ornaments that could potentially fall.

Another great kid-friendly Christmas craft is making Christmas crayons. You use silicone molds and put broken pieces of crayon inside, then bake it in the oven until it melts. Let it completely cool, and you have fun, Christmas-shaped crayons.

I have to admit that I'm a sucker for kid-created snowflakes. I think they're adorable, and they're super cheap. I have this fantasy that I have my future children make hundreds of them and I string them up all over my ceiling. (Like in the movie Elf)

Cone Trees

I've seen cone trees everywhere lately, and think they're adorable. The possibilities are endless for these things, literally anything can be adhered to a Styrofoam form. You could even make sleeves for them and you can change them up each Christmas. Feathers, beads, pearls, ribbons, paper, fabric, scrapbook paper, melted wax, and greenery are some of the countless options for covering a cone tree.


Happy Crafting!