I want to make some Christmas ornaments. Does anyone have any good, thrifty ideas?
Jane
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Long ago we took 2 or 3 inch styrofoam balls and some scraps of material and just place a small piece of material on the ball. With a spoon or nail file press the material in to cover about an inch or so of the ball. Use a different piece and just keep going around until the ball is covered. attach a ribbon with a pin and hang! Merry Christmas! Jean
I have used the lids from juice cans, and made punched tin ornaments. Use a nail and a block of wood, and one large nail hammered into the block of wood to secure it while you work. Certain designs, like a tree, angel, train, NOEL, 2000, star, holly are the most obvious ones.
Anything you can get your hands on is a potential ornament. Think about it.
Last year my daughter (6) and I made ornaments for our tree which are also momentos.
Here's what we did: 1st we took out pictures of all my children, especially when they were younger. We then cut out colored construction paper 1/2 wider than the picture.
We made about 15 of these and my children and everyone else that came to our home last year was thrilled to see something about their happy past on our tree.
We even gave them the ornament as a gift for their tree. My children were so blessed. It will always remind them of their holidays.
Joanne
Clothespin Reindeer
Use the spring type, remove the spring & discard. Paint or stain the clothespins brown (liquid shoe polish works.) Cut a piece of red 1/4" ribbon about 8-1/2" long.
It's real cute. You could also make a pin
by gluing a pin back.
I used this for my nursing home craft class and it was a big hit.
Ms. Syd Barr
When I was young, Mom made ornaments out of 'tin' can lids. She used tin snips to cut out designs such as stars, etc. One really pretty one was a circle than had cuts toward the center evenly spaced around the edge and bent upward. It looked like a mini turbine.
Another ornament that Mom made were beautiful fabric shapes, trees, patchwork squares, stars, stockings, etc. stuffed with batting and closed. She made use of the tinest scraps of material this way.
I have seen woven straw ornaments at garage sales. (I buy Christmas ornaments regularly at garage sales.)
Ornaments can be made out of sewing supplies, old Christmas cards, wrapping paper, ribbon (perfect for bows) and dried flowers and weeds.
You can melt old styrofoam cups in the oven on a cookie sheet. Set the oven at 250 degrees and place used cups, right side up into the oven. Watch them carefully as they will melt down and take on different shapes. When they start to take shape, take them out of the oven, let them cool, and use you creativity to decide if they are hats, or santa bags.
Warning: Do this in a very well ventilated room as the styrofoam will smell as it melts.
I have made these and sold them at church bazaars, and people love to find out that they are recycled!!
I made great ornaments from CD's They are shiny and a good size.I put family photos in the center with evergreen and small oraments around the circle.
I even made a clock. Went to the dollar and got a clock so I could use the mechanism . Attach to back of cd Looks great.
Glue Paper gold doilies around a paper drinking cup that has a point at the end fill with silk flowers or baby breath. Attach a ribbon. Victorian
Decorate an Altoid box punch holes top and bottom put ribbon into holes and hang on tree
Hope these ideas will help Lenore
Save all the colored paper that comes home from the kids school or from junk mail. Cut into strips and then make the strips into loops and make a paper chain.
Any ornament your kids make will always look wonderful on your tree even years from now.
I've seen walnut shell halves decorated and hung from ribbons.
The balls from a sweet gum tree spray painted and hung with a string or ribbon make great ornaments. Try using the seed heads from thistles or other weeds.
Paper snowflakes.
Do you love long walks picking up pinecones but aren't sure what to do with them? Trying making pinecone angels! This can be as thrifty as you want it to be. The head can be a wooden craft ball or an old high bounce ball that has outlived its usefulness. You can either purchase craft wings or make your own. Be creative. Spray paint it gold and hang a string on the back. These are very pretty!
Take lids from jars such as baby jar or spaghetti jars and glue them together so the inside of the lids are facing outward. Cut pictures from greeting cards from years past or pictures of the family or I even copied pictures that children have drawn and downsized them on a copier and cut them and fit them in the lids. The skys the limit with this. We made religious ornaments for the kids Religious Class and we made whimsical tie on for the teacher gifts. We decorate the lips of the ornaments with ribbon and the small garland that you can get the dollar store. Have fun! Only 99 days till Xmas 2004!
Laura Lange
Chicago, IL
I love to make styrofoam ball ornaments.
A cleaver way to use old felt scraps is to cut them
in small circles ( or other shapes)and use quilting pins or pins withe the colorful plastic heads. Take a circle, pin it to the ball and move on until the ball is covered. Last year my DD used Bear punches and flowers and stars. She made them of solid colors and muilti mod style. Everyone loved them. No glue
needed.
Salt dough ornaments are great fun and cheap!! Kids love this.make sure to make a hole before baking to hang it with.
4 Cups of all purpose Flour
1 Cup of Salt
1 1/2 Cups of Hot Water
Holiday Cookie Cutters
Decorations, Glitter, Paint, Beads, Etc.
Knead the dough and roll it out to cut out shapes with cookie cutters (just like if you were making sugar cookies). Place them on a microwave safe plate and microwave on high for about 2 minutes. Paint and decorate as desired.
One thing we made as kids was a cardboard macaroni ornament. Cut a shape (we used stars) out of cardboard (cereal boxes work well). Put a thin line of glue along the edge and put macaroni in interesting shapes around the edge. When the glue is dry, spray paint it a pretty color. Poke a hole in the top, thread with a gold cord and hang. You could also paint the macaroni first and glue on pretty patterned cardboard (Kleenex boxes are good for this).
I like to take styrofoam balls and cut out squares of "country" looking material and then just using a kitchen knife stuff the edges of the squares into the foam. I then glue any type of cord or edging to the slit left by stuffing the squares. They are great for a "country Christmas" or use whatever type material squares that go with your theme.
I have more of a question can you use puffy paint that you would find in a Micheals arts and crafts store on little metal ornaments?
I made ornaments using a 12 pack of red bows that I purchased at a dollar store. Using a heart shaped cookie cutter I cut a baby photo of each grandchild and another one out of foam board. I glued the photo to the foam board, for strength, then pricked a hole in the middle of the top of the heart and ran a wire bread tie through it. I attached the heart photo to the middle of the bow. On the right bow tail with black fabric paint I wrote the child's name and on the left bow tail I wrote the birth year. Just tie them to the tree branches. The bows already come with twistie ties attached to them. Christmas began with a baby after all.
Here is some free projects to look at
Tooth Pick Christmas Balls
www.craftbits.com/
Orange cloves ball
www.craftbits.com/
u should try the kids sites too as they usually have nice simple projects
This year I did a couple new homemade crafts. I made fabric stars out of the already quilted-looking material that you can buy at Walmart, etc. I sewed a front and back together and hung it by poking a hole in the top with scissors and putting a plaid ribbon through the top.
Also, I bought wooden letters, for 97 cents, of the first letters of our family members names. I spray painted them red and hung them again with a green plaid piece of fabic.
I am trying to find a pattern I found on here for folding ribbon into points and covering a styrofoam ball. actually i think they used long bits of material.
I am looking for the Christmas ball made out of ribbons. The ribbons looked like they were folded to make a point and went all the way around the styrofoam ball.
Rizza, look under ribbon ornaments to make under google. Lots of ribbon balls especially the ones you are looking for.
when my son was in head start 10 yrs. ago I was the class mom at Christmas I needed to come up with a craft project for 4 yr. olds , well it turned out that not only 4 yr. old like them all of them did, my grandmother gave me a lot of used puzzles you know 500 - 1000 pieces, well I took the pieces and made a wreath , glue gunned together, and spray painted them red and green, and attached a looped ribbon to the top.........then I purchased glitter, ribbon,small buttons, you could be creative with what you use.........anyway I let the children decorate their own wreaths, oh yeah and I had asked each child to bring in a picture of themselves as recent as possible.......... the finished products were presents for the parents.........they were a big hit.......I made enough for those who had younger brother or sisters so that each child in the family had one that year ....all these years later I still put those on my tree.........what a walk down memory lane..............I know I have run on and on but I hope it make sense........good luck
I'm from TX. We Texans are so full of state pride, we are bustin' with it! I found a TX shaped cookie cutter and I have a bunch of polymer clay. I went to Hobby Lobby tho, and found some red and blue with sparkles in it.
So I rolled out this clay and cut out TX. shapes. At the top, in the panhandle, I took a plastic straw and punched out holes for white ribbon, and then baked the clay. After all of them are done and strung, I bought silver and gold paint pens and I plan to write a Christmas greeting on them and give them as gifts. Having a blast with it!
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