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Easy DIY Wooden Christmas Ornaments For Your Tree

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After checking out these wooden Christmas ornaments, you might like this tutorial on how to make a gift box out of scrapbook paper, along with how to make a wooden wall-mounted DIY Christmas tree.

Watch These Wooden Christmas Ornaments

 

When I was a kid, my fondest memory during Christmas time was putting up our horribly flat, old artificial Christmas tree and putting out the decorations.

Now…I use the term “horribly” loosely, because in the eyes of a child, it was the most awesome tree ever, but to an adult, it probably had seen better days!

But it was the family hand-me-down ornaments I remembered most. Some of them were quite tacky and old, with chipped-off paint, but we didn’t care. They were a part of our family. And all lit up, they were quite cozy!

As an adult with kids now, unfortunately, I haven’t been so great at creating these memories for my own kids.

Yes, we put up (a horrible!) artificial tree every year, but our ornaments are generic balls that I had found in a junk pile. HA! And they have no aesthetics at all!

I’m ready to bring back some of that nostalgia.

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - 5 Ideas for wood ornaments - Thrift Diving

 

Earlier this month I showed you how I made this DIY ornaments keepsake box, but what I didn’t really show you was how I made the DIY Christmas tree ornaments inside the box!

So here goes!

Materials List for Wooden Christmas Ornaments

(I participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and other affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites).

  • Scrap wood or 2 inch wooden dowel like these
  • Bits of scrap wood or sturdy cardboard
  • Chalky paint
  • Painter’s tape (I prefer Frog Tape)
  • Stick-on buttons
  • Googly eyes
  • Drill and a drill bit
  • Sharpie marker or black stickers for the mouth (if making snowmen pencil holders)
  • Eye screws (if making wood Christmas DIY ornaments)
  • Jute string (if making wood ornaments)

 

Wooden Christmas Ornament Idea #1: Snowman Pencil Holders

While this isn’t an ornament, I had to include this because it’s so easy and fun (and makes great gifts, especially for teachers). If you enjoy woodworking as I do, it’s likely you have some scrap wood lying around.

I had cut the legs off an old changing table that I turned into a desk for my oldest son.

The leftover wood was perfect for pencil holders!

BEFORE

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Use scrap wood or a large dowel to make DIY wooden Christmas ornaments pencil holders or gifts - Thrift Diving

AFTER

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - DIY snowmen pencil holders - Thrift Diving

 

Wooden Christmas Ornament Idea #2: DIY Santa Ornaments

And if you’re not so lucky to have rounded scraps like this, you can easily buy a wooden dowel from the home improvement store to make either the snowmen pencil holders or the DIY Santa ornaments.

The wooden dowels are only about $5.00. But if you’re getting them from the Home Improvement store, they’ve got hand saws in the aisles so you can cut only about the length you need by the foot. Ask them to cut it for you, though! Save your arm for painting instead! LOL

BEFORE

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Use a wooden dowel to make DIY Christmas ornaments - Thrift Diving

AFTER!

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Use a wooden dowel to make DIY Christmas ornaments for Santa ornaments - Thrift Diving

 

I used Annie Sloan’s red chalk paint for the body because it was super vibrant. If you’re looking for a good chalk paint that you can buy on Amazon, but may not be as vibrant, try the Folkart Chalky Paint in Tuscan red. It’s a really good chalk-based paint that sticks really well!

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Paint your wood - Thrift Diving

 

Tape off the body to add the white and black trim of Santa’s suit.

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Santa ornament - Tape off the center for Santa's belt - Thrift Diving

 

Wooden Christmas Ornament Idea #3: Studded Snowflake Ornaments

If you’ve got a piece of rectangular or square scrap wood parts, you can make a studded DIY snowflake ornament, too!

I took a square piece of scrap wood, stained it, added leftover over furniture tacks from another project around the sides, and a painted stencil. (I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut a vinyl snowflake stencil and painted over the stencil with white.

I added and an eye screw on top with string, and–voila!

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Wooden studded ornament with snowflake stencil. - Thrift Diving

 

 

Wooden Christmas Ornament Idea #4: Family Picture Cube Ornament

This one is super special because you add family and friends to make a DIY picture cube ornament with leftover scrap wood! If you don’t have a jigsaw (and you have to get one because they’re only about $40-$60!!!), you can just cut up sturdy cardboard.

I used scrap birch wood about 1/4″ thick that was left over from other projects.

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Wood family cube Christmas tree ornament. - Thrift Diving

 

I just cut them all the same size, glued them together with super glue and let it dry. Then I sanded it smooth and tried to add wood filler to fill any big gaps (oops, LOL).

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Wood family cube Christmas tree ornament glued together. - Thrift Diving

 

I printed out some family pictures, decoupaged the pictures to the sides, and added the eye screw on top and some hemp string.  When adding the eye screw, just drill a small pilot hole with your drill bit so that it’s easy to screw in the eye screw.

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Wood family cube Christmas tree ornament with decoupaged family pictures. - Thrift Diving
DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Wood family cube Christmas ornaments decoupaged with family pictures. - Thrift Diving

 

It’s a little heavy because I made mine about 3″ wide, but if you make yours smaller, you won’t have any problem! Or you can hang these from somewhere else! 🙂

 

DIY wooden Christmas Ornaments - Wood family cube Christmas ornaments decoupaged with family pictures on all sides. - Thrift Diving

Wooden Christmas Ornament Idea #5: The Uncommon Objects Ornaments

Even the most uncommon stuff can be made into DIY ornaments! I had found this pile of scape wood at the ReStore. And one piece caught my eye.

 

Repurposed Wood Into Ornaments - Thrift Diving

 

The spindles were calling me! All I had to do was pull this apart.

 

Repurposed Wood Into Ornaments - Thrift Diving 2

 

…and the spindles came right out!

 

Wooden Christmas Ornaments - Upcycle wood spindles into wood string ornaments - Thrift Diving

 

I drilled holes in them, threaded baker’s twine, and added eye screws, and now I’ve got three cute dangly DIY Christmas ornaments!

 

Repurposed Wood into DIY ornaments 2

 

Think outside the box about what can be turned into memorable ornaments or gifts!

 

Repurposed Wood into DIY wood ornaments

 

How to Make a Gift Box Out of Scrapbook Paper

If you decide to make any of these and give them away as a gift, here’s a really easy tutorial I did on how to make a DIY gift box out of scrapbook paper! It measures about 4 x 4 and would be a unique way to give gifts this season! 🙂

 

How to make a gift box out of scrapbook paper

How to Upcycle Scrap Wood Into DIY Christmas Ornaments - Thrift Diving Blog

 

When we put up our tree this year–and heck, I might even splurge for a real tree this year!–we’ll all least have some fun DIY ornaments to add to the collection (along with a great snowman pencil holder gift idea for the kids’ teachers).

You never know…. my three sons might even save these ornaments and pass them down to their own kids one day.

How’s that for tradition?? 🙂

So have you ever made wooden Christmas ornaments or any other holiday ornaments? Tell me all about them!

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5 Comments

  1. These are all really great ideas Serena. ANd the most important part is that they are hand made. I too t ry to make hand made ornaments to give a different tone to the tree and not have it be generic. In fact I jut decoupaged some old balls that I didn’t like the colors of… keeps me busy!

    1. Hi, Mary! I just stopped over to your blog and I love those red ornaments! How pretty they are! Vibrant. Thanks for commenting!

  2. Post from Marge Reed on Facebook
    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1063323183698208&set=gm.10156234319020582&type=3

    Hi, Serena
    When I saw the post I mentioned above, I immediately thought of you and this post. I tried to copy the picture and activate the link, but couldn’t. If you copy and paste in the link, it will take you to her project though. Who’d a thunk it? Enjoy the creativity!

    I’ve not worked with wood, but have made “soft” ornaments using lace, artificial flowers, ribbons, etc. and sewing and stuffing shapes (bells, stars, trees). More Victorian or Countryish, but it’s fun! Love the storage box and the knobs for hangers. That gave me an idea for a Shadow Box storage piece for my To Do List . . . like I’m going to live long enough to finish that! LOL Love you

    1. Wow, Teckla, who would have thought you could do that with flip flops!! I love people’s creativity, don’t you?!
      Hey, I actually have 2 shadow boxes that would be perfect! I wish I could send them to you! 🙂 They’re just sitting in my basement.

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