Ever since my first Christmas, I’ve handmade ornaments. I grew up Jewish, so I didn’t get to have a tree in the house until I was 16 when my mom got remarried to my Catholic stepdad. It was our first Christmas together as a family so my mom wanted to make it extra special. She bought clear ornaments and hand-painted each one to represent a different memory or personal symbol. For weeks I’d rush home from school to help her paint animals, zodiac signs and representations of trips we took together. We still keep the Christmas tradition, painting new ornaments for any guests that spend the holiday with us.

I hand-make ornaments in my home as well. I don’t have the time for painting (and I hate having to clean up the mess!) so I create easy DIY projects for a personalized touch. Last year, I created crystal and pearl ornaments to match my winter wonderland theme holiday decor. This year’s color theme is blush and emerald. So I came up with two different DIY ornament ideas to match: jewel ornaments and floral ornaments. Both are so simple to recreate! Here’s how to do the easy DIYs:

jewel ornaments

What you need:

• clear ornaments
• crystal jewels
• velvet ribbon
• jewel stickers

You can create jewel ornaments with any holiday color theme. The emerald crystal jewels I ordered also come in ruby, amethyst, diamond and more! You simply open up the clear ornament ball and pour the crystals inside. I tied a bow on top with velvet ribbon to elevate the look but you could easily skip this step since the sparkle speaks for itself. Since the crystals fall to the bottom of the ornaments, I added extra sparkle on top of some with emerald stickers. I prefer self adhesive jewels since I can’t be bothered with messy glue.

floral ornaments

What you need for these DIY ornament ideas:

• fillable clear ornaments
• paper flowers
• fresh eucalyptus
• wired ribbon
• velvet ribbon

I came up with this DIY because I really wanted to re-use the paper flowers from my fall decor DIY project. I simply pulled them off my pumpkins and placed them into my ornaments! I used fillable clear ornaments for this project since you can open them to stuff anything inside. I placed the flowers face down on one side, then used fresh eucalyptus and ribbon to stuff the ornaments so the flowers stayed in place.

Not only do these ornaments look pretty, they also smell delicious! You simply cut small stems of fresh eucalpytus and stuff them in a circular motion on top of the paper flowers. Then you snap the empty side of the ornament on top. The leaves dry out overtime but the scent stays.

I also used wired ribbon to create a floral design. You loosely roll up about a foot of ribbon and place it over the paper flowers. Then you pat it down so it spreads out into a rose design before connecting the other side of the ornament. I had rose velvet ribbon left over from my fall decor so I used that to tie the two sides of the ornaments together. Then I created small bows for a feminine touch.

I hope you liked this ornament DIY as much as I enjoyed making them!
If you recreate the idea, I’d love to see! Just tag @sydnesummer #ssInstaFam on Instagram and I’ll share it on my Insta Stories!

See more holiday decor ideas

Photos by Munopia