Having homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments on your Christmas tree is much more sentimental than having store bought ornaments. It gives your home that warm, old-fashioned Christmas feeling and is a great way to bring the family together for the holidays. Show off your artistic side this year! Everyone who comes into your home will feel that "special glow" that the holidays bring when they see your tree this holiday season.
Most homemade Christmas tree ornaments can be created with items found in or around your home, with little to no cost to you. One idea that my family would do every year when I was younger is to collect pine cones from outside and decorate them. Growing up in the northeast, we had plenty! We would collect a bunch of pine cones and make different types of ornaments with them. My favorites were the glittery ones. We would take different color glitter glue and put a line of glitter on the tip of each leaf on the pine cone. Do all one color or use different ones. Tie string on the top to hang them with and you have a beautiful, nature-made homemade Christmas tree ornament. Another pine cone idea is to make angels using the cone for the body. Just cut out some wings using paper or foils, add a head and a halo with a hot glue gun and decorate.
Homemade Christmas garland can be made with any number of things. Popcorn is probably the most common choice. There are many other things you can use though if you wanted to do something different. You can use any kind of food that won't go bad and that is soft enough to pull a string through, like certain types of dried beans, berries, candies or marshmallows. If you prefer not to use food items, you can use plastic or glass beads, or artificial flowers or just about anything you can think of that you can put a hole through.
I think we all have seen the gingerbread man ornaments. Just bake hard gingerbread cookies, decorate and hang from the tree with a string pulled through a hole punched in the cookie. These are really fun for the kids to help with, although they may eat more of the candy and icing decorations than actually get put on the ornaments!
If you like to recycle, there are many things you can use for homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments. Bottlecaps and light bulbs are just a few of the things you can use. Take different colored bottle caps and glue them together into different shapes with a hot glue gun. For instance, use one bottle cap for the middle, and glue the others around it in a circle. You can then use cotton, glitter, beads or anything you'd like to make a pretty ornament. With the light bulbs you can make Rudolph or snowmen! For Rudolph, paint the bulb brown or wrap it in brown felt. Glue on a red pom-pom for the nose, glue on or color on a mouth, some googly eyes, and some cut-out antlers. Tie a string around the top to hang it with and you have Rudolph! Use cotton balls or white felt material to make a snowman! Just glue them onto the bulb, add a cotton ball or another piece of felt material for the head and decorate as you'd like. You can even do angels or Santas! With a little imagination, you can make lots of beautiful glass ornaments with recycled light bulbs.
Do you have a lot of plain, glass ornaments but you want to spruce up your tree a little this year? Take the top off of your plain bulbs and swirl some acrylic paint on the inside! You can use a brush, or just put a few drops of paint inside and swirl it around by tilting the glass ornament around. Add some glitter if you like. Let dry and replace the cap. Another great idea for clear glass ornaments is to put pictures inside. One of my favorite gifts I ever received was a picture a relative had taken of my child inside one of these ornaments. They just put the photo inside, recapped the ornament, and tied some ribbon around the top. It's a beautiful addition to my tree every year! These make great homemade Christmas gifts! They're easy, inexpensive, and will be kept as keepsakes for years to come.
I hope you've gotten some good ideas from these suggestions! Have a very Merry Christmas!
Need more ideas for Christmas ornaments? We have a great selection of Christmas ornaments and tips for holiday decorating ideas at http://www.jinglebellgifts.com
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