Homemade Christmas Ornament Ideas

by Jaime

Homemade Christmas ornament ideas are plentiful, but my favorite ones are those that reflect something special about their makers, and the timing of their creation.

One such kind of homemade ornament, which parents and children of almost any age can get in on the making of, takes a traditional seasonal paper craft and runs with it.

Start with squares of white or silver paper, in a size as large as you’d be comfortable having an ornament be. Fold them in quarters (or triangles) several times, stopping when the paper is going to get too thick to cut easily with scissors, and/or get too small for a child of any given artistic motor skills to draw a few designs on.

Each family member should use a fine-point black, blue or silver pen, or a pencil, to draw designs on the folded paper if the paper is white, and use a black, fine-point sharpie if using silver wrapping or scrapbooking paper.

The idea is to draw on a few designs which start at the sides of the folded square or triangle, and which will be cut away. (Make sure that no complete folded edge is removed in this process.) After kids or parents have done the cutting, careful unfolding of the paper will reveal what looks like a snowflake.

I like to center a small, current photo of each snowflake’s maker in the center of the snowflakes, both for the sake of compounding the memorabilia affect, and for the sake of stressing the point that everyone, just like a snowflake, is unique in each of their magical moments.

A trimmed photo can either be glued over the middle of a paper snowflake as it is, or the snowflake can have a “window” cut into the middle if there isn’t one there already, the photo can be glued so that it shows through it.

And if you want a more polished look to the backs of the ornaments as well, some handiwork by a parent involving exact tracing and careful cutting of a snowflake duplicate can allow you to sandwich the photo in place between two sides of a paper snowflake.

A Sharpie can be used to mark the back with the name and year, since those won’t bleed through or emboss-from-pressure what they are used on.

These delicate snowflakes can then be sandwiched between the sticky sides of two sheets of clear lamination paper (or clear contact paper, which is essentially the same thing and offers better value per roll than a package of a few sheets of laminate).

Start by laying one lamination sheet down on the table, sticky-side up, and pressing the fronts of the ornaments down onto it. Then, starting at one corner, smooth the second lamination sheet down over the ornament backs.

The second technique is more likely to result in “air bubbles” if not careful, which is why I recommend that it is used on the ornament backs.

If you wish, you can place the sandwiched ornaments over a sheet of cardboard and have a parent use an Exacto knife to cut away the clear plastic in the “holes” of the snowflakes, preferably leaving a narrow halo of transparency around all edges of the paper, so the lamination is still sealing in the paper.

Otherwise, you just use the scissors again to trim just past the outside edges of the paper snowflakes. Laminating these will improve their durability and their moisture-resistance.

If you want to swipe glue on the outside edges of the snowflakes and glitter them, or glue on sequins, now would be the time to do it.

Just remember that the contact paper is not very porous, and the glue is not going to hold other non-porous things on very well.

Consider using better than your average white / Elmer’s glue if you’re going for the glitter-edged thing, or use silver paint-pens or silver Sharpies to line or dot the edges, instead.

If sequins are the order of the day, consider using a needle to poke closely-placed double holes through the laminated ornament in the chosen spots.

Then you can use silver or blue metallic embroidery-machine thread to go from the front through a seed bead, through a sequin, through one hole into the back of the ornament, back through to the front through the other hole, back through the sequin, back through the seed bead from the other direction, and then knot in front and fray the clipped ends of the thread after the knot for a frosty fiber burst.

You can also use the same thread to make a hanger for each ornament, either stringing it through a hole that’s already there, or poking another one with the needle.

Here's some other great frugal Christmas ideas.