One of my favorite memories of growing up was coming up with ornament ideas and making homemade Christmas ornaments. When we exchanged gifts with our aunts and uncles, we could not purchase gifts, we had to make them. Mom would have us start our handmade Christmas gifts pretty early in the year so that we could have them completed in time. You can find your inspiration just about everywhere you look to come up with ornament ideas. I find homemade Christmas ornaments to be fascinating. You can easily make any of these homemade Christmas ornaments to share with your family and friends.

1. One favorite I have is a push-pin ornament that is created with decorative pushpins; the ones that have pearled bulbs on the end or beading of some kind. Tissue paper wraps a Styrofoam ball to add a little color and to help hold the pins in place. You could fill the sphere so that only the pins show or create patterns with your pins adding lace or fabric on a colored Styrofoam ball. Add a hanger and you are set.

2. Another interesting homemade Christmas ornament is a pretty little wreath made from a single pipe cleaner (pick any color that you prefer) which is weaved through a strip of decorative lace. Leave extra space while weaving so the lace can bunch up and create an additional dimension. Then just twist the pipe cleaner where it meets to make a circle and the hanger.

3. A fun and easy children’s handmade Christmas ornament is to take dry noodles and glue them in a circle or pattern around the edge of a small paper plate. Once the glue is dry, spray paint the plate and the noodles in a festive green or gold. Add a few fun embellishments and a school photo to the middle and you have yourself a priceless and timeless handmade Christmas ornament to add to this year’s tree. You could even do this project each year and start a family tradition and watch you Christmas tree “grow” each passing year.

4. Sometimes it is the unique ornament ideas that make a handmade Christmas ornaments super special. A unique ornament that I have made and that I had originally received as a gift is one I call, “wishing you a Merry Christmas”. You start with an actual turkey wishbone. I just saved it from Thanksgiving and washed it really well before leaving it out to dry. Once it dried, I drilled a small hole in the “Y” part of the bone, spray painted it white (any color will do) and then decorated with other colors and little pine cone, berries or beads of embellishment. You can add the hook and tie a ribbon or lace in bow and hang it on the tree. I added a tag that said, “WISHing you a very Merry Christmas”. It is still one of my favorites to hang each year.

5. A simple and classic look to add to any tree is a snowflake. Cutting and creating unique paper snowflakes can really make a tree pop with detail. Better find some helpers though, more snowflakes always looks better to me and sometimes it takes a lot to cover the tree. This is another fun project to have the kids help with.

6. Here is an easy project for children. Collect some pine cones and add beads and glitter with glue. Hangers are not even needed for these ornaments that can simply be placed between your Christmas tree branches. An elegant but simple addition of sparkle and color.

7. If you are looking for something super easy just use fruit. Not real fruit but the one they sell in all the craft stores. Sometimes you can find them really smooth and shiny and others that you might prefer have a rough textured and almost glittery look. Take simple ribbon or lace and tie it to the stem of the fruit. Tie a couple of pieces of fruit together. Just add a simple embellishment in a contrasting but complimentary color and you”ll create something beautiful for your homemade Christmas ornament. On the smooth ones you use gold fabric paint to add messages or the year or a simple design. Be creative, let yourself go.

As you can see there is no limit to the easy and fun Christmas ornament ideas that are out there and right in front of your eyes. Some are simple projects and others take a little more skill and attention to detail but all are certain to create a unique and decorative tree that your friends and family will be amazed by.