One of the best ways to have together-time with the family around the holidays is making ornaments with your kids. It can get a little messy if you have little ones, but the memories will last a lifetime. It’s also muchhhh cheaper to decorate your tree with homemade ornaments than with store-bought ones.
The key to making ornaments with your kids is to keep things simple and give them room to make their ornament unique. If you regularly read our blog, you know how much we LOVE pinecones for decoration around the holidays. They also make a great starting point for homemade ornaments. Here’s how to make a simple and easy pinecone ornament at home with your kiddos!
Here’s what you’ll need:
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A few pinecones
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A pack of mini pom-poms
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Your choice of string, ribbon, or twine
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A pair of scissors
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A hot glue gun
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Colored glitter glue (optional)
Getting Started
First things first, collect some pinecones! This is a fun way to spend some time in the park with your kids, and you’ll be able to find a variety of pinecone shapes. (Try motivating them with a prize for being first to collect 5 pinecones!) You’ll need pinecones that have already opened up to make room for the pom-poms. Make sure the ones you collect are cleaned up and don’t have mud, bugs, and any other woodsy mess inside.
Prepping the pinecones.
Once you’ve gathered your pinecones, lay out a tablecloth or newspaper to keep the mess off of your table, and get your other supplies ready to go. If you like, you can paint the pinecones before you start. And if you want some extra sparkle without the mess, some craft stores sell pre-painted and pre glittered pinecones!
Glue it!
Using your hot glue gun, add a small drop of hot glue to the underside of your pinecone’s “branch.” (And this kind of goes without saying, but only the grown-ups should handle the glue gun.)
Add a mini pom-pom.
Now that you’ve added a drop of glue to the underside of a pinecone branch, take the mini pom-pom of your choice and stick it to the drop of glue. Make sure to hold it there long enough for it to stay put! These pom-poms are super easy to find at your local dollar store or craft store, and there are all sorts of colors available.
Repeat under each branch.
Attach a mini pom-pom to the underside of the pinecone branches until you’re happy with how it looks. You can either do every single branch or skip a few to spread out the color. Let your kids get creative with the colors to make their ornament unique!
Add a loop to the top.
For the ornament loop, you can choose pretty much any string, twine, or ribbon. It’s easy to find options at the dollar store that will have your pinecone ornaments looking super festive. Use your scissors to cut a 10-12” length of string or ribbon. Then, glue the ends to the top of the pinecone with a generous glob of hot glue. (You can cover up that ugly glob of glue with more pom-poms or ribbon.)
Optional: decorate with glitter glue.
Glitter glue is fairly inexpensive, and it can really make these ornaments pop! Try adding a small dot to the top of each branch for some extra sparkle.
Let them dry and hang them up!
Once the glue has dried, your ornaments are ready to go on the tree! Hang them up and enjoy them for years to come.
