Christmas C.R.A.F.T. #12: Family Tree Ornaments

When I think Elmer’s, I think glue, but there is so much more! Elmer’s makes a plethora (gold star word for me) of craft products, including the one I’ve been using a lot lately – foam board!

My mom saw these at Pottery Barn Kids and was inspired to create a family Christmas tree theme. When you need 18 ornaments for a Christmas tree, $8 a piece gets expensive fast (8 x 18 = $144 BUCKS)!

We decided to DIY them! Shocker! Elmer’s supplied me with foam board, X-ACTO knife, and glue. We had glitter on hand, and bought 8 yards of red ribbon for $1.92. We tried using ribbon around the edges of the foam board. Glitter was much more efficient!

Materials:

Elmer’s foam board
X-ACTO (I always use this one!)
metal edged ruler
glitter
Elmer’s glue
ribbon
hot glue gun
pictures
scissors
felt

TOTAL COST PER ORNAMENT: .09 cents!

Use the X-ACTO knife to cut out rectangles from the foam board… make sure you cut on a cutting board. A metal ruler does wonders for keeping your blade from going cra-cra!

We made the mistake of only glittering the front side of the rectangles… we went back and glittered all the sides! Much easier to do this all at once. Here are the ornaments with glitter on only the front:

Don’t waste glitter! I glittered in a frame shape! Use glue to stick the picture in the middle of your frame…

Use your hot glue gun to make a hanger for your ornaments….

Next use Elmer’s glue to glue felt to the back of the ornaments…

Just so you can see how much better it looks to glitter the edges of your ornaments:

A few pictures of the finished family themed Christmas Tree:

My mom’s dog, Lacie, looking pretty (and my mom’s big ol’ foot!)

We decided to surround the family tree with family pictures! We ended up with a blank frame and whipped up a little sign:

Here’s the family tree with the glitter framed family tree ornament addition…

DIY Family tree ornaments

Here are all the kids in order from youngest to oldest all at different ages! (Yep, I’m the oldest of 6!)

We decided to glitter the edge of the ornaments…

Speaking of Christmas trees, for the past couple of years my mom has put up a Texas themed Christmas tree with lots of DIY ornaments. And just for fun, here is my super simple modern Christmas tree I put up last year!

PS: Elmer’s has a fun, new guide called Looks for Less. It features design-inspired room ideas to get your home looking fancy. This guide helps you construct store bought items using Elmer’s and X-ACTO products while making the most of your decorating dollar. Download this useful guide HERE!