It’s been quite some time since I last shared the ornament crafts we’ve done over the years, so I thought I’d update the list. In 10+ years of homeschooling at Christmastime, we’ve made 17 different ornaments, and a few of those have had different variations, as well. Many of the ornaments have come from kits, but some of those are easily reproducible with the right materials.

2023–We made a simple but lovely, music-themed ornament from a craft kit to go with our music-themed Christmas School.

2022–We made a pair of ornaments…one to represent our summer vacation (memory spheres), and one to go with our “Christmas in Germany” themed Christmas School (ornaments inspired by the German flag).

2021–Since we had clay left over from making medals for our Tokyo 2020 summer school, we made painted clay ornaments that we cut out with cookie cutters I bought just for this project.

2020–I waited a long time for the children to finally make these beautiful sequin ornaments, and it was totally worth the wait…they add so much sparkle to the tree!

2019–When I saw these “stained glass” ornaments at Joann, I knew this was the project we were going to do this year, because they reminded me of ornaments I made when I was a child!

2018–I needed something simple (broken ankle and all), so we made yarn ball ornaments. They may have been easy to make, but they look so pretty on the tree!

2017–This year, we made bead and button icicle ornaments in both red & green and blue color schemes:

2016–I finally found a Nutcracker Prince ornament kit, which involved painting…a first for us at Christmas!

2015–Mop-n-Glo glitter ornaments in two different shapes!

2014–Clothespin donkeys:

2013–Spiderweb ornaments to go along with the legend of the tinsel:

2012–Jingle bell wreaths, and our one true ornament failure. I should have known better than to try to make paper ball ornaments, because I was also a failure at them when I was a student, but we tried, we made the best of our mistakes, and we made a memory!

2011–Button wreaths and pipe cleaner starbursts:

2010–Crystal snowflakes and spiral trees:

2009–To be honest, I’m not 100% sure what ornament we made this year…but I think it was probably these snowflakes:

2008–Our first year of homeschooling meant making the two simplest ornaments I knew how…beaded wreaths and candy canes:

And then there are the final two ornaments. I can’t remember what year we made either of them, but I know the penguins were part of a kit from Target…I normally avoid craft foam projects, but these were too cute to pass up! At some point, we also made Nutcracker Princes that were printed, colored, cut out, laminated, and attached at the joints with brads:

Other than hand-and-footprint turkeys, Christmas ornaments are my favorite craft project of the year. I especially love that they are something that we not only keep, but also get out again year after year to hang on our tree…and someday, the children will be able to add them to their own Christmas trees!