I recently posted some kid-made necklaces created from glue and paint over on The Craft Train.
They have been a big hit here with my 5-year-old.

(Spoiler: If you’re her mate, you’re getting one for Christmas. She has a necklace-making factory in operation.)
As we’ve been making batch after batch, we thought they’d be fun Christmas ornaments for kids to make.)

Presenting kid-made Christmas ornaments from glue and paper straws!

This post contains affiliate links
Thanks for your support!

You will need:

Non-toxic craft glue/ PVA glue
Paper straws, cut into smaller lengths
Plastic paint palette
Sequins and sparkly things
Yarn
Beads

These Christmas ornaments are awesome for learning about patience and trial and error. The ornaments take about a week to dry- so unfortunately this isn’t any good as a last-minute project.

How to:

Squeeze about .5cm of craft glue into a circular mould. Each circle of our paint palette measures about 7cm in diameter.
You could also experiment with a muffin tin that you are happy to sacrifice for crafty purposes. I’ve never tried this project with a muffin tin, but I suspect it could work.

Let the decorating begin!

Add your paper straws. We created abstract designs. We arranged stars in ascending length to create Christmas trees. You might like to sprinkle sequins and stars into the glue- be sure that they are embedded in well. With some of the ornaments, we squeezed some gold paint on top of our designs. (IKEA Mala paint is our top choice here.)

You may just like to use paint to decorate your ornaments, like I did over on The Craft Train.

I am a glitter grinch. My 5-year-old of course thinks it is the best substance known to Humankind. I relented and bought some glitter glue. (Surely if the glitter is in the glue, it can’t spread everywhere?!)

We experimented with using the white craft glue as a base and decorating over the top with the red glitter glue. This wasn’t so succesful. We also experimented with using the red glitter glue solely as a base. It did work, but the discs were more flimsy than the white craft glue.

Trial and error and patience

This is where the trial and error part of the project comes into play.
We generally subscribe to the philosophy of “more is more” here for craft projects.

Miss 5 learnt that this philosophy didn’t really lead to success for this project.
Too many decorations mean that the glue can’t dry underneath. So decorate sparingly.

Set your palettes aside to dry on a flat surface. This is the hard part. Now you must wait.

How will you know when the Christmas ornaments are dry enough?
Lightly touch the centre of the circle and then the edge. Obviously no glue will come away if it’s dry. Another sign is that your ornaments should pull ever-so-slightly away from the edge of the circular mould.

This next step is one for adults to do

Run a sharp knife around the edge of your pendant to loosen it.
Gently peel the pendant away from the mould. Depending on how many decorations you’ve embedded into the glue, you may need to use a knife to loosen the centre of the ornament from the mould.

Ready to hang!

Use a skewer to poke a hole through the ornament. String some yarn through the hole . You might like to add beads. Tie a knot and your kid-made Christmas ornament is ready to hang on the tree!

Pin for later: