Spread the love

This post may contain affiliate links for products I love and recommend.

If your house is anything like ours, we just love the handmade ornaments the kids have made throughout the years, but also want a cohesive, magazine-worthy Christmas living room. It’s a real struggle. Do we get two trees? Decide we’ll never have a matching house until the kids are grown? Is it even possible to have both? I’m not here today to give you an answer to that question, but share a few projects we’ve done to help blur the lines between cutesy kid-craft and stylish home decor. While our house is covered (and I mean covered) with handmade holiday projects, this post covers 3 DIY Chic ornaments kids can make.

Like I mentioned, our house is head-to-toe DIY. We made the abstract art as a family last Easter by throwing egg shells at a canvas, (see the post here) the stacked log fireplace here, the planters, and even the faux fur throw pillows and coordinating stockings. It seems like most days we always have our hands in some form of paint, glue, or fabric. Our tree is no different. Each year it seems we do a new project and create more ornaments, toss the ones that are falling apart, and refresh.

It’s not perfectly coordinated, but for the most part is pretty cohesive and we’re happy with it. The kids are so proud of the ornament they’ve made and point out which ones are theirs whenever company is over. Here’s 3 ideas to get your own creative ornament-making juices flowing:

Hot Glue & Aluminum Foil Ornamnets

During a Pinterest-stalking session a few years back, I stumbled across these intricate hot-glue snowflakes people were applying directly to their own windows. They looked absolutely beautiful, but I know I am not that artistic and I was afraid the weather gets too cold here that the glue would crack the glass. As an alternative, we created snow-flake shapes with hot glue on an aluminum foil sheet. Once the glue was dry, the kids peeled the glue off the best they could and left the metallic finish on one side to create a sheen that looks intentional.

Styrofoam Ball & Toothpick Ornamnets

These mid-century-looking ornaments were so simple to make. Empty a box to toothpicks onto the table and give each kid a Styrofoam ball. After the toothpicks are all partially inserted, spray paint. I gave these an additional coat of glitter spray paint after the silver paint had dried for more glitz. Right now our “pokey ball” ornaments are about 4 years old and still look great.

Spray Painted Pine Cones

We’re lucky to live at the mouth of a canyon and find pine-cones everywhere. For these ornaments, which we used to decorate everywhere, the kids went into the yard, gathered some pine-cones, spray painted them and voila! Since it’s okay if the paint goes on a little thick, this is a great project to introduce spray-painting with kids. Their little fingers got tired of pushing the nozzle down and they obviously needed a lot of supervision, but they loved the freedom of doing an “adult” project. If you ever come over between November and January, my house is covered in pine-cones spray-painted white, silver, gold, and bronze.

Supplies You’ll Need:

I think above all, when it comes to decor and the holidays, have fun! Feel free to play and experiment and get the kids involved. If a project turns out terrible, laugh and move on. When it comes down to it, the memories made while making the pieces you’ll keep for the next several years are what makes it special- not how it looks.