Making Hands-on Ornaments With Kid Art

You know we like to make ornaments (there is a pleasant collection of others that we have whipped up over the years at the end of this post) so we are simply dropping by to share the ones we made this year. You know, for any other jonesing-to-eat-all-the-cookies-and-make-all-the-ornaments folks out there.

And these might go down as the easiest grandparent gifts ever (masterpieces by their go-to little ones + a sweet and personal ornament = grandparent gift jackpot). They are so cute you will certainly want to make some for your own tree while you are at it.

Plus they only cost around a dollar or two (and take ten minutes or so) to make, which is certainly key when Christmas is less than a week away!

So let us talk about the wood ornaments first. I picked up these flat wooden tags at Michael’s, where I was in fact planning to grab flat ceramic ornaments (like the ones we used for this Hands-on ornament project of yore) but they were out. So I found these cute distressed wooden tag-looking things in the wood aisle. They were 99 cents each, so when you add the obligatory online coupon, the grand total for 6 was less than $6. There are also ornaments like these, these, or these that would work truly well – plus they already come with hanging holes.

To hang the wood ones I’d need to drill some swift holes, but that is fairly plain. You could also simply tape a loop of ribbon to the back and it should hang ok if you do not wanna mess with a drill.

Here is what I was left with after making all of my holes (I used a 3/16th sized bit). The scrap 2 x 4″ is key for not drilling into our new work surface in the shed, which risks invoking the wrath of Shed-Obsessed John.

Then it was time to apply the stickers. Our son made these cute caterpillars in preschool and our daughter came home with the adorable blue birds from first grade. It is through a school fundraiser called Square1Art that I believe a lot of schools do (our school sends the stickers home for free and offers up other things you can buy for the fundraiser like a mug with the design on it, etc).

If you do not have readymade stickers, you can simply scan or photograph any go-to piece of kid art and print it out on sticker paper. Or do regular paper and Mod Podge them to the wood surface. Either way – so straightforward and such a cute way to keep track of something that might otherwise get lost or stashed in a box forever instead of being enjoyed.

With your stickers in place, simply thread some thin ribbon through the hole. We had this red ribbon on hand because I save every last gift bag and bow and ribbon and gift box. Every last one, folks. I could fashion a full on ball gown a la Cinderella with my surplus.

Now let us chat about that clear domed one that I in fact made last year (before our son came home with any). Michael’s and JoAnn sell these plastic ball ornaments with the front cut out – sort of like a terrarium (you could also use these). With a coupon they came in around $1.50 each, and I simply stuck the sticker on the inside of the back. We had some fake snow around from our little glass boxes full of dogs so I grabbed some of that and used Elmer’s glue to stick some snow to the inside of the base, and around the outside of the top.

Warning: do not curve the sticker to hug the back curve of the ball fully, or it’ll get especially wrinkled and warped. Simply stick the four corners to the curve where they meet it and do not push on the center. That holds the sticker pleasant and straight instead of wrinkling it all up with that final press in the middle, and it still holds firmly (this guy’s securely stuck 365+ days after making it). I enjoy the idea of our kid-art ornament collection growing each year, and I might keep using distinct objects to spice things up and keep them from looking too matched (like flat ceramic disks next year, perhaps a wooden block the following year, etc).

Hope you folks are having lively and not stressing out too much with Christmas coming so fast and furious! I have been drinking all the chai and eating all the cookies and I highly recommend it. I also treated myself to LED window candles that do not need to be plugged in and run on batteries, so I do not worry about them burning the house down anymore (an old electric one we had tipped and melted the bottom of our blinds! ACK!). Plus they have a timer so they auto turn on and off which is fairly remarkable (no more running around turning them all on and off every day). Yup, Santa in short came early. Also: all the cookies. All of them.

Psst- If you are looking for more holiday projects, here are a bunch of other ornament DIYs (and other small & straightforward Christmas projects) from the archives:

• 1. Once upon a time, we made a ton of painted homemade ornaments
• 2. Here is how to make giant red reindeer (an essential life skill)
• 3. Here are the ornaments we made with John’s race medals

• 4. Here are the silhouette ornaments we made a while back for our children (hand prints too)
• 5. Snowy boxes full of little trees & puppies are consistently a good idea
• 6. We also made antler & animal ornaments, some snow-capped glass balls, & dried oranges
• 7. Here is how we made these rustic wood ornaments

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