One of our favorite Christmas traditions is creating our own Christmas ornaments for the tree. I use to be fully against trees that weren’t themed and looked like this. Three years ago though, my husband convinced me to try a fresh cut tree with all the homemade ornaments and I fell in love. Now its a tradition I love to uphold and this year we are starting with this kid-friendly Christmas tree ornament craft.
Kid-friendly Christmas Tree Ornament Craft
Materials Needed
• 5-inch, 1/4 inch diameter piece of dowel rod
• pencil
• tape
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• scissors
• 10 pieces of 7.5-inch x 3.75-inch Christmas scrapbook paper or wrapping paper (red/green paper used are free here and an aqua/red combo can be found here)
• stickers, buttons, or other decorations for your final tree
• a small piece of ribbon to use as an ornament hook
To begin rolling your Christmas paper, I found that it rolls more tightly if you first make a small crease at the end. Using a pencil, tightly roll each piece of paper to the end.
Next, use a small amount of tape to secure the rolled paper and slowly slide the pencil out. It should look like the photo below.
Arrange all of the rolled pieces into your preferred order. Make sure that the seam side of the tape is facing up. Apply a generous line of hot glue along the center. Pro tip, if you’re struggling with keeping them all straight, place them all between two heavy books.
Next, attach the dowel rod to the glue and press in place for about a minute while the glue dries. Be generous with the glue and add more hot glue along both sides of the dowel rod. This will secure it in place.
Your next to last step is to use a pair an x-acto knife to cut the diagonal lines to form a tree. Lightly mark off the shape of a tree with a pencil, angle your knife, and cut. Warning: it will feel like your paper might come loose from the dowel rod, but don’t worry, it won’t. If you don’t have an x-acto knife laying around, you can grab one here or use a sturdy pair of scissors.
Lastly, loop a ribbon to glue to the back for hanging then add a star or your choice to the top and you’re finished!
What a clever family-friendly holiday ornament. Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas season.
This is a super cute kids craft idea. My children would love to create this as they are always crafting and coloring.
These are SO cute! Homemade ornaments are the best and kids love pulling them out year after year remembering how they made them.
That is an adorable ornament! I think my kids would enjoy making one of these for our tree. I love simple crafts that look like they took a lot of time and effort.
Christmas traditions are so awesome, especially for the kids. It teaches them to value the family’s values. These crafts are so cute. I love how they turned out!
This does look like such a cool craft. And you could do all kinds of different wrapping paper to make it look like a tree. Would be beautiful and unique.
These are so darling! They are also perfect with little ones that have short attention spans (and adults too, like me!) lol I made something like this for my grandmother when I was little so this brought back memories!
This is so cute. I’ll show this to my daughter and I’m sure she’d be thrilled to make it. Thanks for sharing!
What a great way to get the kids excited for the holiday season with these DIY ornaments. We’re always looking for ideas to keep the kids busy while their home on winter break.
My kids love doing arts and crafts during the holiday. They’d really be excited to make one of these diy Christmas tree ornaments.
What a super cute and easy diy ornament! I think this year we will do a couple of handmade ornaments for our tree.