The prices of Christmas ornaments seem to be climbing a little higher as each year passes. If you’d like your Christmas tree to look a little more interesting this year, though, you don’t have to shell out big bucks to get new tree decorations. You can always exercise your creativity and make your own ornaments, and the good news is that all the items you need can be found in your own household.
The Web provides a wealth of resources and tutorials that can help you make Christmas decorations out of ordinary household items. You can easily take on these projects this holiday season, even if you’re not skilled at arts and crafts. For your convenience, here’s a list of the household items that you can easily make into Christmas tree ornaments.
Old magazines
If you have subscriptions to magazines, then chances are you have stacks of old issues lying around your house. One way you can make good use of these old magazines is to make them into Christmas tree ornaments such as stars or bells. It’s best to use colorful magazine pages so that you can create visually attractive tree decorations. You can find video tutorials and diagrams on how to use origami and fold pages of the magazines into different paper sculptures. Once you’ve made your miniature paper stars, bells, or birds, you can give these a coating of varnish to make them more durable.
Coffee can lids
Coffee can lids are commonly found in many households because most recycling companies don’t accept these lids. Small coffee can lids can make for great Christmas wreaths that can be hung on a Christmas tree. The first thing you need to do is to cut out the center of the lids so that you end up with donut-shaped pieces of plastic. These will serve as the wreath’s base. You can decorate these bases with a variety of items, including pipe cleaners, cotton balls, buttons, and lengths of ribbon and yarn. These items can be attached to the base using glue.
Clothespins
You can make good use out of the extra clothespins you have at home by turning these clothespins into poinsettia-shaped Christmas tree ornaments. You’ll need twelve flat clothespins for one clothespin poinsettia. The first thing to do is to paint the clothespins; four clothespins should be painted green, while the remaining clothespins should be painted red. The green clothespins, which serve as leaves, should be arranged below the red clothespins, or the petals, so that there are two petals between each leaf. A small pompom can be glued onto the center of the clothespin poinsettia to complete its look.
Light bulbs
Old light bulbs can also be designed to look like miniature penguin ornaments to be hung on the Christmas tree. To start making a penguin out of a light bulb, you can cover the bulb with a few layers of papier-mâché. Once the layers are dry, you can paint the light bulb in black and white, using foam for the penguin’s eyes, beak, and feet.
