It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I absolutely love the month of December – we have family birthdays, I almost always get to play in a little snow, and everything feels bathed in the warm glow of holiday anticipation. There is one thing that always irks me though…the plastic. It’s EVERYWHERE.
In an attempt to keep a little plastic waste out of the landfill, I played around with ways to upcycle it for the holidays and came up with these lovely little yarn-wrapped snowflake ornaments.
For another easy, low-mess kids’ snowflake craft, visit the tutorial for snowflake suncatchers, or make a pail of DIY faux snowballs for an indoor paper snowball fight.
To make DIY yarn-wrapped snowflake ornaments you’ll need
BASIC SUPPLIES:
- Yarn
- Plastic packaging or containers
- Scissors
- Tissue, wrap or scrap paper
- Clear tape or craft glue
OPTIONAL SUPPLIES:
- Our free printable snowflake ornament template PDF
- A Dry-erase marker
- Cardboard
DIY Yarn-Wrapped Snowflake Ornament Instructions:
Gather supplies
Gather some plastic containers with flat sides, as well as a few of your favorite colors of yarn. If you’re going to be using our template, download it above and print it.
For a variation on this, you can cut out simple shapes from cardboard instead.
Draw or trace snowflake shapes onto clear plastic lids and cut along lines
You can easily free-cut shapes, but if you like the ones we used, you can lay your plastic pieces over the template and trace them with a dry-erase marker. Once you’ve traced your snowflake, trim and cut along the lines, then gently rub off the dry-erase marker.
Cutting lines into the snowflake shape will help secure your yarn in place as you wrap it to create a pattern.
Wrap with yarn
Now it’s time to add the yarn to your ornaments. Gently pull and thread your yarn through the cut lines in the plastic, creating fun patterns or randomly weaving back and forth to create lines and dimension.
Secure yarn with a knot and trim, leaving 5-6 inches for hanging
Once you’ve finished weaving, tie off your yarn. You can either trim off the excess or leave a long piece you can use to hang your ornament.
Add a colorful backing
Using the plastic pieces or our template, cut out simple shapes of the same size to create the snowflake backing. Fold the pieces in half or quarters, then cut any way you’d like to create paper snowflakes. Using a small piece of clear tape or craft glue, attach these to your plastic yarn-wrapped pieces.
Now you have beautiful yarn-wrapped ornaments! You can hang these on your tree, or use tape to hang them in a window. The plastic catches the sun and reflects the light to give these a beautiful shine – just like a real snowflake!
For more simple holiday kids’ crafts, visit our collections of festive holiday kids’ crafts using household supplies and kid-made holiday kids’ craft ideas.
GETTING READY TO TRY this?
I love seeing all the ways people make these ideas their own! If you're sharing the results of one of our projects, mention or tag me with @barleyandbirch, or share it in the comments of one of our Pinterest project pins.
