Holiday Ornaments

Hello and welcome to those who might be visiting my website for the first time via the Quilter’s Advent Calendar. I’m Yvonne Fuchs (aka Quilting Jetgirl) and I’m so glad you stopped by. Today, I’m sharing about the holiday ornaments that I’ve been making for our Christmas tree using tutorials I found around the internet. If you are interested in sticking with more strictly quilting tutorials and patterns, I have over 100 free tutorials for you to browse (just be patient letting the page lot – that’s a lot of content!), some handy printable tables for newsletter subscribers, and over 70 PDF quilt patterns in my pattern shop.

For a little over 20 years, my husband and I did not have a Christmas tree*. That all changed the Friday after Thanksgiving when I impulse purchased the *cutest* 4 foot tall artificial tree. I was immediately excited about making ornaments for the tree. I quickly decided on a general blue and white theme for the ornaments, and then later revised that theme to add rainbow. These ornaments have been fast and fun to make, and maybe one or two of these might inspire you to make a few new ornaments this holiday season.

Supplies

As I was bookmarking different tutorials for ornaments that I wanted to make, I quickly realized that I was going to need spray starch. My husband and I are both scent sensitive, so I do not own any commercial spray starch. Instead, I made this Homemade Spray Starch, and I opted to use a full 2 tablespoons of cornstarch in the recipe. It made for quite stiff fabric!

Other than fabric, the supplies I used are:

• Spray Starch
• Elmer’s Glue Stick
• Hot Glue Gun
• 12wt Aurifil Thread
• Tape
• Scissors
• Card Stock
• Holiday Tissue Paper
• Straight Pins with Flat Heads
• Embroidery Thread
• Stiletto
• Chopstick

Scandinavian Star Tree Topper

Scandinavian Star Tree Topper

The first thing I needed for the tree was a tree topper. I chose to make a Scandinavian Star Ornament that measures about 5½” square when finished. I loved that I was able to push the top branch of my artificial tree into the bottom loop, making it easy to place on my tree.

I followed the How to Make a No-Sew Scandinavian Star Ornament | Shabby Fabrics YouTube Tutorial with the modifications noted below.

Scandinavian Star Tree Topper

I did not have any fusible on hand, so after heavily starching my chosen fabrics (but before trimming down ), I used an Elmer’s Glue Stick and glued the two fabrics wrong sides together. Because I then cut very narrow strips, I did have to use the glue stick to fix a few areas, so what I did was a definite “make it work” situation. So far it is holding up, but we will see how it looks next year when it comes out of storage!

Speaking of trimming down, because of my choice of the Alison Glass trinkets print with the gold metallic symbols on white, I used a lot more fabric than a 6″ square in order to fussy cut ½” wide by 6″ strips. I’m really happy with how it came together!

Homemade Christmas Tree Star Ornament

Homemade Christmas Tree Star Ornament

Next, I followed the Live, Craft, Eat! Homemade Christmas Tree Star Ornaments tutorial, opting to use 12wt Aurifil thread instead of yarn (because I don’t have any yarn at home but I have lots of 12wt Aurifil!). I used the suggested 2″ squares of cardboard. Looking around my craft room for what I could use for the center of the ornament, I found some snowflake tissue paper that I layered on top of a light cream card stock.

Homemade Christmas Tree Star Ornament

After making 2 blue and white versions, I made a rainbow colored one that brings me a lot of joy. I wrapped each color of 12wt Aurifil thread around the star shape 6 times.

String Art Ornament

String Art Ornament

Since I had the card stock out, I used the remnants to create a few string art ornaments (number 19 in the 81 Homemade Christmas Ornaments list). I used my stiletto to punch holes in the card stock and embroidery floss for the thread. I made three of these in total: a square set on point (shown above), an oval, and a circle.

Fabric Scandinavian Folded Star

Fabric Scandinavian Folded Star

I have seen the Fabric Scandinavian Folded Stars all over social media in years past, and I knew I wanted to give it a try. I found these two video tutorials very helpful to watch before making my own:

• Scandinavian Folded Star from Fran’s Sewing Circle (YouTube)
• How to Make Fabric Scandinavian Folded Star Ornaments with Mx Domestic (YouTube)

Fabric Scandinavian Folded Star

Because our tree is so tiny, I used 3″ wide strips to make my stars, and they finish at just about 3¼” square (point to point). I made 4 of these stars in various blue and white, all blue, and rainbow stripe prints. Also shown in the photo above is the what the back of one of the Homemade Christmas Tree Star Ornaments looks like.

Fabric Origami Balloon

Fabric Origami Balloon

I asked for suggestions for DIY ornaments on social media last week, and one commenter mentioned that they use a lot of paper origami balloons to decorate their tree. I asked if they had ever tried using heavily starched fabric to make an origami balloon, and they said they had not and were worried about inflating the folded balloon. Well, I very heavily starched some fabric (my husband said the fabric felt like construction paper when I was done) and then cut it into a 6″ square. It was pretty easy to finder fold into shape, but it did not inflate. Instead, I gently used a chopstick to press the balloon open, and I think it makes a really cute ornament!

Jetfamily Christmas Tree

So, here’s our little 4 foot tall artificial tree all decked out for the season. You may notice that I also included a rainbow note card tucked into the branches on the lower left. Another commenter mentioned using the holiday cards they receive to help fill out their tree, and we might see how that goes this year. I’m happy the unique stair skirt I made last year works well enough in our new home with this tree!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I’d love for you to share links to any of your favorite ornament tutorials in the comments.

*Now hold on, you might think. Why didn’t you have a Christmas tree for so long? Well, my husband’s birthday is December 26th and we got married on December 27th. It can be very hard to have a birthday so close to Christmas, and one of the biggest choices we have made in life is to have less “stuff” and enjoy more experiences together. With so much to celebrate 3 days in a row, we are usually out hiking, camping, traveling, or somehow creating memories instead of at home. This year, we are settling into a new home and I just couldn’t resist the tiny 4 foot tall artificial tree.