With all the hurried shopping, preparing for guests and running from holiday party to holiday party, the Christmas season so frequently passes by too quickly to appreciate it fully. Take the time to gather your loved ones together for Christmas crafts such as these homemade ornaments for a relaxing break from the stress of the season.
Beaded ornaments make for chic-looking Christmas trees. String glass beads onto wire cut and shaped like stars, snowflakes or small globes. Twist pieces of wire around other pieces to join them together, such as for snowflakes, and twist the ends of the wires together to secure the shapes. For a more effortless look, thread the beads onto several pieces of string. Collect the strings at one end and join them to an ornament hook, letting them hang loosely.
Feather ornaments bring a natural element to holiday decorating. Align the tops of two to four feathers per ornament and wrap wire upward around the top half inch of all feathers simultaneously. Extend about a centimeter the wire beyond the top of the feathers, then bend wire 180 degrees and bring it back to meet the top of the feathers. Cut the wire. Slide a bead cap onto the tops of the feathers, threading the topmost pointed extension of wire through the hole in the cap. Use small pliers to bend the wire poking out of the cap into a small loop so the cap will not slide off, then attach an ornament hook through the loop to hang the ornament.
Making yarn ornaments is simple and suitable for a wide range of ages, and nearly endless options of yarn colors and textures exist to make the project infinitely customizable. Select a yarn and use it to make many small pom-poms, either solid or multi-colored. To hang from your tree, open the bottom of an ornament hook and insert it through the pom-pom’s knotted piece of yarn in the center.
Yarn can also be made into lightweight globes, perfectly suitable for eye-catching ornaments, by substituting yarn coated in glue for wired string lights. Inflate balloons only to a diameter of several inches in order to create ornament-sized spheres, and let dry before popping balloons. Use Christmas-appropriate colors of yarn or spray paint completed globes for a modern, polished look.
For a more environmentally friendly option, create your homemade ornaments out of recycled materials. Plastic bottles, for example, are ideal materials for fashioning eye-catching homemade plastic ornaments.