Homemade Christmas Ornaments

Article by Richard Cunningham

One of the great things about Christmas is of course decorating the tree. It’s a special time of year when the tree arrives in the home and whole family gets to come together to decorate it. Of course, this also means pulling out all the old Christmas ornaments and getting them together, untangling the lights, and hoping that the angel from years past didn’t get mouldy or break. While all this is wonderful and really allows you to spread the holiday cheer, this year I have a different suggestion for you. Why not try trimming your tree with some homemade Christmas ornaments.

“Homemade?” you ask. Why of course homemade. Let’s face it, the Great Recession has bitten into everyone’s budget this year and many of us are out of work. We can’t afford to spend piles of money for new ornaments. And even if you are working, these are some great ideas that will really bring a family together for the holidays.

The first suggestion I have for you is the construction paper links. We’ve all put the lovely tinsel onto our trees at one time or another, but this is a bit of a different take on the subject. Basically, what you will need is:

*A pair of scissors

*A ream of construction paper (the coloured stuff used by kids)

*A roll of scotch tape

*Lots of patience.

Start by cutting the construction paper into short strips, along the width of the paper. Now, use your scotch tape to paste one strip together into a ring. Take another colour and form a ring around the first one, using scotch tape to secure it into a ring. If you want it to look a little more elegant, you can tape it from the bottom instead of the top so that the tape isn’t showing. This will make it a little more difficult, but it does look pretty. Keep going until you have a long string of construction paper rings and then lay it on your tree just like you would lay tinsel.

Here’s another homemade Christmas ornament you can try: This one does require a little more effort. What you will need:

*Construction paper

*Scissors

*Steady hands

In essence, what you are going to do is to create snowmen out of your construction paper. The way this is done is by folding the paper into a kind of fan. You will then need to carefully cut out one half of a snowman figure. This should allow you to have a string of snowmen to decorate the tree. If this is too hard, you can make a homemade Christmas ornament by simply cutting out a star shape and creating a row of stars.