How to Make Your Own Ornaments Kit

Make kits with craft supplies to make ornaments for your favorite holiday.

If someone you know likes to decorate for every holiday and season, an ornament kit makes an appropriate last-minute gift. Use the kits as fundraisers for church groups, youth clubs, sports teams, senior centers or daycare programs. Once made, use the ornaments as gifts as well. Keep a bunch of ornament kits handy for those moments when you or family members need something creative to do with your time.

Things You'll Need

• Gallon-size plastic zipper bags
• Felt squares
• Scissors
• Coloring page outline drawings
• Cotton or polyester batting
• Tapestry and fine needles
• Embroidery floss
• Metallic cord
• Polystyrene foam shapes
• Plastic knives
• Calico cloth scraps
• Burlap cloth
• Lace and other trims
• Narrow satin ribbon
• Curling ribbon
• Pinking shears
• Scrapbook scissors
• Clear craft glue
• Optional: feathers and bead strings

Instructions

Felt Ornaments

1. Place felt squares, scissors, coloring page outline drawings, copy paper, cotton or polyester batting, tapestry and fine needles, embroidery floss and metallic cord in a gallon plastic zipper bag. Make each bag specific to a particular holiday by varying the colors of the felt, embroidery floss and metallic cord and by including holiday-specific outline drawings.

2. Fill Christmas ornament kits with red, white and green felt, cord and floss and outlines of sleighs, sleds, snowmen, Santas, stars, Christmas trees and candy canes.

3. Make a Mardi Gras ornament kit by substituting white, purple, green and gold felt, cord and floss. Add feathers, a mask outline and bead strings.

4. Use orange, black, yellow and green felt, cord and floss for a Halloween kit. Add bat, witch, ghost, spider and cat outline drawings.

5. Make Thanksgiving kits with brown, red, green, yellow, white and black felt, cord and floss. Add turkey, cornucopia, pilgrim boy and girl and Native American boy and girl outlines.

6. Fill Kwanzaa bags with red, black and green felt, floss and cord. Add coloring page outline drawings of a unity cup, kinara, corn, fruits and vegetables and a book.

7. Fill Hanukkah bags with white, blue and gold felt, cord and floss. Add outlines of a dreidel, menorah, candles, coins and letters for the following words: nun, gimel, hei and shin, which means "A great miracle occurred there." Add a copy of the rules for playing dreidel to complete your kit.

Solid Polystyrene Foam Ornaments

1. Fill gallon-size plastic zipper bags with solid polystyrene foam eggs and balls, solid and calico cloth scraps, lace and other trims, plastic knives, narrow satin ribbon, pinking shears and clear craft glue. Individualize the kits for the appropriate holiday, as you did with the stuffed-felt ornaments.

2. Use polystyrene balls for Christmas and substitute eggs for Easter, Passover or Ostara kits. Cut corn, fruit and kinara shapes from polystyrene foam sheets for Kwanzaa; turkeys and a cornucopia for Thanksgiving; and bats, ghosts, cats and haunted-house shapes for Halloween.

3. Add instructions so kit recipients know how to use the plastic knife to make a pattern of grooves in the polystyrene shapes. Also add instructions on how to cut the cloth scraps large enough to overlap the pattern sections and how to use the knife to push the cloth into the grooves in the foam.

References

• Kwanzaa on the Net: The Symbols of Kwanzaa
• My Jewish Learning: How to Play Dreidel