Unique, Nature Inspired Ways to Craft Christmas Ornament Decor

Instead of buying ready made Christmas ornaments this year for decorating our home, my kids and I plan on making nature inspired ornaments using items found around the yard. Things like seeds, nuts, twigs, pebbles, and even brown or yellow bird feathers feathers can easily be turned into nature inspired Christmas ornaments with a styrofoam orb and glue.

The basic supplies for this Christmas activity are styrofoam Christmas orbs found at the dollar store (12 for $1), hot glue or white glue, Christmas ribbon, and an assortment of found objects from nature. For a cheap but fun Christmas ornament craft or a unique weekend activity to do with the kids, here's some ideas of how you too can use these supplies to make nature inspired Christmas ornaments for this holiday season.

1. Vine wrapped ornament with dried flowers. Since I have lots of grape and Virginia Creeper vines in my yard, dried vines make up a lot of our seasonal home decor. To make the nature inspired Christmas ornament as shown, we just wrapped a 2-inch styrofoam ornament orb with still-flexible vines, using a bit of hot glue to hold the twigs in place. Dried yarrow blossoms were tucked into the vines to finish up this pretty ornament. If you don't have access to yarrow, scope out vacant fields for other dried but pretty flowers.

2. Seed balls. Seed balls were all the rage 10 years ago, but still make a pretty, nature inspired ornament. For this Christmas craft, a bag of sunflowers, dried beans, dried peas, or dried garbanzo beans are all that's needed to turn a plain ornament into something special. The secret to making a seed balls is to attach the base of the seed (and not the side) to the styrofoam orb using hot glue. If you have the patience, one nice effect is to use two different types of seeds to create a pattern.

3. Glue colorful feathers. My Golden Sexlink chickens are molting at present which gives us a great supply of golden feathers that can be glued to a styrofoam orb with plain old white glue. If you don't have access to feathers, check out the craft stores.

4. Wrapped in hemp and accented with bayberries. Hemp or garden twine makes the "foundation" for this fun little Christmas ornament. What we do is to wrap a styrofoam orb with garden hemp (as if you were making a yarn ball) and then glue the end down to hold in place. From here, glue down rose hips, dried bayberries, or even arborvitae seed pods to the hemp in a pretty pattern.

5. Sand ornament. For this unique ornament, slather white glue around the entire styrofoam orb then roll in white silica or fine sand.

6. Decorate it with cloves. In the "old days", pressing whole cloves into an orange was a simple way to make holiday pot pourri. Whole cloves can also be pressed into small 2-inch styrofoam orb to create a nature-inspired potpourri Christmas ornament.

These are just a few examples of how you can make a nature inspired Christmas ornament using items found around the yard. But, don't stop just with these ideas! Natural objects such as acorn caps, pine cone "petals", dried flowers, Oregon grape leaves, or tiny sea shells can all be glued to a styrofoam ball to create your very own nature inspired Christmas ornament.