DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments

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These gorgeous handmade Christmas ornaments would make a beautiful addition to any rustic Christmas tree. Bonus, this DIY project is made from upcycled wood! DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments would make a great handmade gift idea!

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I love Christmas. I shared in a recent post memories of chopping down a Christmas tree from the forest by my parent’s house when I was a child. Cutting our own Christmas tree is a tradition I’ve continued with my own family, though we go to a tree farm to find our perfect tree. Our Christmas tree each year is filled with a random assortment of ornaments that all have memories associated with them. We have never had a “theme” tree, but one day, I’d love to have a “rustic” themed Christmas tree, filled with wood ornaments and other decorations made from natural materials.

I was recently asked if I wanted to take part in a blog hop where we made Christmas ornaments using our Cricut machines! Heck yes I did! I immediately knew what I wanted to make… ornaments made with slices from the trunks of our old Christmas trees (we save one slice each year). I asked my husband if he would pull them out from the Christmas decorations for me. He asked me what I was doing with them and when I told him he said “You’re not going to paint them! You’ll ruin them!” 

I disagree with him 100% on this point! Wouldn’t it be nicer to have our old tree trunk slices hanging on our tree as decorations than sitting in a box going to waste? Reminding you of so many fabulous Christmas memories???

These gorgeous handmade Christmas ornaments would make a beautiful addition to any rustic Christmas tree. Bonus, this DIY project is made from upcycled wood! DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments would make a great handmade gift idea!

Since I’m in the Christmas spirit, and didn’t want to pick a fight, I went back to the drawing board. A year and a half ago, Stephanie from Garden Therapy, invited me to go to the tear down day at the local Home and Garden Show because a design team was having to scrap the materials from their display. We scored a ton of fence panels and small wood posts. I decided to use the later for this post. 

I love upcycling! Making something old new again… Saving it from the landfill… Inventing a new and creative way to reinvent the item from it’s original purpose. 

I had The Hubs, cut one of the wooden posts into slices. I sanded it down using our Dremel (though you could use sandpaper) and we were good to go!

Now, I’ve seen a lot of people making ornaments out of slices of wood, I know there is nothing new about this concept, BUT one of the things that I love about my Cricut Explore Air 2 and my subscription to Cricut Access, is that there are over 30,000 images that I can chose from to cut using my Cricut, or if I’m feeling so inclined, I can upload my own images. 

I had a ton of fun going through the Christmas images and picking some of my favorites for my ornaments. 

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Read on to learn how to make DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments or your own!

DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments

Materials:

-Slices of wood (we used upcycled slices from some old fence posts, but you could also use slices from a Christmas tree trunk or slices from a large tree branch.)

Dremel with sandpaper head or regular sandpaper and some good old fashioned elbow grease

Chalkboard Paint

-Paint Brush

Cricut Explore Air 2 or your favorite Cricut Explore machine

Cutting Mat

-Vinyl (I used Cricut’s Gold Glitter Vinyl from their assortment pack)

-Drill and drill bit (We use a Ryobi Drill)

-Ribbon

-Optional: Mod Podge in your favorite finish

These gorgeous handmade Christmas ornaments would make a beautiful addition to any rustic Christmas tree. Bonus, this DIY project is made from upcycled wood! DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments would make a great handmade gift idea!

Directions:

Step 1: Sand your wood slices so that the front where you’ll be applying your paint and vinyl is nice and smooth. I used the sanding head on my Dremel to get this done quickly, but you can also use regular sandpaper and good old fashioned elbow grease.

Step 2: Paint the front of your wood ornament with chalboard paint. I left a border around the edge of my wood ornament that was approximately 1/2 inch. 

Step 3: While your paint dries, open Cricut Design Space, select your designs and cut on your glitter vinyl. Make sure that you measure the front of your ornaments to see how big you can cut your designs. If you like the designs I used, feel free to use my design file here

Step 4: Weed your vinyl and transfer it to the front of your ornament.

Step 5: Drill a hole in your ornament and thread the ribbon through for hanging. We did this step last because I wanted to see how the design was positioned before drilling. 

Optional step: I found that my Let It Snow design wasn’t sticking to the front of my ornament very well. I don’t think the wood was sanded quite as well as the other pieces and the design was a bit more intricate. I ended up putting 2 layers of Mod Podge on top to help seal the design to the wood. Apply the coats thinly and let dry thoroughly between each application. 

I’m so happy with the way that these DIY Upcycled Wood Ornaments turned out. They would make a beautiful addition to a rustic themed Christmas tree, and I think they would also make great handmade gifts. I think next Christmas I might host a craft night and make these with girlfriends! 

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Want to check out the Christmas ornament designs that my blog hop friends designed Check them out below!

Tell me… Does your Christmas tree have a theme? Do you have any handmade ornaments on your tree?

Pin our DIY Upcycled Wood Ornaments for later: 

These gorgeous handmade Christmas ornaments would make a beautiful addition to any rustic Christmas tree. Bonus, this DIY project is made from upcycled wood! DIY Upcycled Wood Christmas Ornaments would make a great handmade gift idea!

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6 Comments

  1. These are fantastic! I love the “Merry & Bright” one although they are all super pretty! Thanks for sharing your tutorial with us at Merry Monday this week!

  2. Victoria Ess says:

    Thanks for the tutorial! I love the personal touch in these ornaments and they turned out so nice!

  3. Sarah Oswald says:

    i would love to try to make these and Im sure I can find lots of wood outside my house thanks for sharing these ornaments and how to do them.

  4. Gorgeous!I love this DIY Christmas balls from the ornaments. Congrats to you and your cute child for this beautiful ornaments.