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In this post: Create memories making your own ornaments with over 40 easy to make Christmas Ball Ornament Ideas! Free printable, easy to find supplies.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve come to really enjoy making Christmas ornaments over the last few years. Of course there are so many ornaments that you could create. But my favorite quick and easy Christmas ornament crafts are the ones where you “just” add fill to those clear Christmas balls, or give them a bit of embellishment. The Christmas ball ornament ideas are endless!
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40+ Christmas Ball Ornament Ideas For You to Try This Year!
Making ornaments using clear glass or plastic ball ornaments (paid link) is so easy you can even do it with the kids. Here are more than forty ideas for making your own Christmas ball ornaments.
Looking for more DIY ornaments? You might want to try making these too:
Filled Ornaments:
Simply remove the top, fill each ornament with the items listed below, replace the top, hang and enjoy!
If your chosen fill is larger than the hole in a normal clear ornament, buy the ornaments that split in two.
- Bottle brush trees and fake snow
- Glue and glitter
- Strips of sheet music or old book pages
- Mini jingle bells
- Rope, twine or jute for a beachy look
- Pieces of real or faux pine or cedar greenery
- Faux cranberries
- Scrabble tiles, either individually or glued together to make a short word like joy or noel, etc.
- Birch bark
- Mini pennant banners
- Confetti shapes
- Sprinkles
- Candies such as Smarties, M&M’s, jelly beans
- Dry hot chocolate mix and marshmallows
- Sequins
- Roll a mini ball of yarn and two small stick pins to look like knitting needles
- Fabric shreds, maybe from an old well-loved child’s blankie, or from fabric the color of your decor scheme
- Pip berries garland pieces
- Old kids’ Christmas lists
- Faux snow and mini pine cones
- Beads or pearls
- Feathers
- Faux snow
- Lego pieces
- Mini dinosaurs or animals
- Photos
- Miniature maps of places you’ve visited
- Steampunk scrapbooking bits like gears, etc.
- Sand and mini seashells
- Buttons
- Twigs from your yard or the cottage
- Pipe cleaners twisted into any shape
- A layer each of dirt, moss and then faux snow to look like the ground at Christmas
- Popcorn kernels or popped!
- Cloves and/or cinnamon
- Paper clips or staples for an office tree
Embellished Ornaments:
Just add the decorations as described, hang and enjoy!
- Santa’s Belt: fill with red tinsel or fabric, add a strip of black velvet and a pop can tab
- Winter Scene: draw snow covered pine trees with a white marker on outside of ornament, fill with faux snow
- Snowing: draw snowflakes with white marker on outside of ornament and fill with sparkly faux snow
- Snowman Head: glue two mini buttons and an orange triangle of paper onto outside of ornament, then draw black “coal” for a snowman mouth
- Glitter Monogram: draw a nice big monogram on the outside of the ornament, fill with glue and then sprinkle with glitter
Free Christmas Ball Ornament Ideas Printable Cheat Sheet
I’ve even created a free printable, so you can print off all the ideas, take them with you and craft your very own ornaments!
Take with you to find supplies, or keep it handy while you order supplies online. Then just fill your ornaments, hang and enjoy. Make some yourself to give as gifts, or start a new family tradition of making ornaments together each year! Just use the form below to get your cheat sheet sent to your inbox!
Great tutorial! Just ran into a lady at the store who shared about how important it is to create with our children/grandchildren. She was beginning a yearly “tradition” of making a craft with her eight grandchildren. Oh the fun they will surely have!
What a wonderful tradition!
(Again, I must apologize, I’m only seeing these comments now for some reason!)
lovely ideas! I love the birchbark, twigs and glitter ideas! Super cute 🙂 I also think some with a Harry Potter theme would be super cute as well! thanks for sharing these!
stop by and chat with me ♥ http://storybookapothecary.com
What a fun idea! You could really use them for any theme you like!
Love these ideas, such fun! I love that these are so easy to put together. My granddaughters are still too small for this, but in a couple of years, I think this will be very popular! I am pinning this and sharing over at FB and Twitter! I would love it if you would stop by after 8:00PM EST on Saturday and share this at Celebrate Your Story link party at Celebrate and Decorate! Merry Christmas! Chloe
Thank you for sharing!
Muylindo,gracias de todo corazon. Te deseo muchos exitos.Desde Colombia con gran cariño.
Muchas gracias!
How do you get a picture in the clear ornament ball.
I was trying and the picture has been cut down really small like 3 x3 but the picture won’t fit right. So what the trick?
I’m SO sorry! I just saw this comment now for some reason!
Did you sort it out? You’d probably need the really large size clear bulbs.
Wrong email address sorry this is the right one.
There are specific clear ornament balls for putting photos in. Another option however is to use a good color photocopy of a photo and roll it to get it into the top of the ornament. It should unroll pretty naturally once inside. But you could “help it along” with tweezers.
Loving these! The tiny trees inside are my fave. Too cute!
Love all these ideas! Clear ornaments always sell out at my craft stores so I made sure to buy them early this year! Definitely going try out some of these! Found you on Inspiration Monday 🙂