Last year (and every year before that since I've been alive...) we had a small, thin branched fake christmas tree in our livingroom, and what seemed to be an abundance of ornaments to decorate it with.

Well, this year, my parents bought a new fake tree! (yay!) And it's a whole lot bigger and thicker than our old one, which made us realize that we actually don't have very many Christmas ornaments at all. It just seemed like we did because our old tree was so small!

So here's my question: any ideas for making some Christmas ornaments to hang on the tree?

Thanxabunch

My sister bought a bunch of fake poinsettias, pulled the little heads off the stem, and just artfully stuck them in the tree. It looked great and very Martha Stewart-y. You could probably get them on sale, since it's so close to Christmas.

This year I have made heaps of origami and other kinds of paper folded stars, some of the diagrams etc I got online some from books, here are some of the sites I looked at >http://highhopes.com/3dstar.html
>http://www.home.zonnet.nl/gerard.en.paula/3_knotologieEN.html
>http://www.cs.utk.edu/~plank/plank/pics/origami/mosely.txt (this one is for stellated dodecahedron which are cool but tricky) there is also a simpler pattern)
>http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/5901/ (this is the simpler one, you just print out the pattern and then cut and fold, v. funky)

I also made some cool icicle shapes but I got them out of a book, origami can be really easy once you get the hang of it although technically most of these aren't origami but if you make them out of nice paper then they look really speccy on the tree, ros.

this is more of a kid-project thing, but you can take clothespins (not the spring kind), paint faces on them, and dress them as angels with little scraps of lace, felt, wire, ribbon, etc. you just push the legs of the clothespin over the tree branch to decorate with them.

you can use metallic pipe cleaners to make stars. if you cut them in half and secure three in a star shape, then push plastic beads onto the arms of the star, it makes great kitchy ornaments.

if you crochet, you can make lovely crocheted lace snowflakes, and starch them into a state of firmness for hanging. i unfortunately don't have any patterns, but maybe someone else does?

stella

yes, crochet snow flakes I made some this week with sort of metalic gold thread, I didn't have a pattern just made it up as I went along.... a ring of about 8 -10 chain then doubles all around that for stiffness, then loops of about eight chain going over every three doubles, then trebles over these chains for four with a three chain picot in the middle and another four trebles on each loop, basically only four levels of stitching in concentric circles going out.... don't know if that made sense I haven't done any crochet properly for years and not sure if i'm using the right terms. I didn't need to starch these because of the stiffness of the metalic thread ros.

This is something you would do in preschool, but I've made this almost every year. I love them becuz they smell so great.
I'm not sure on the recipe
4 oz. of cinnamon
1/4 cup of applesauce
2 tsp. of glue
*mix really well, you may have to add or subtract a little here and there to get the right consistency
*roll out but keep around 1/2" thick
*cut out w/ cookie cutters
*takes around a day or two to dry
I'm not sure how long they will last, i think the glue preserves them pretty well

Here are some ideas I tried:

-Oragmai - Last year this was my focus and I was unable to find any good oragmi books at the library. I ended up making a lot of the little balloons that I made when I was a kid, using foil and patterned paper. The foil looks nice, and the balloons are easy.

-Check thrift stores for old ornaments.

-This year, I made a bunch of stars from silver tinsel pipe cleaners. The tinsel ones aren't very bushy, so I twisted 3-4 together before I started. Then I just sndwiched 4 together and twisted them together at the center to make an 8-pointed star. Martha Stewart has instructions at her website for making other tinsel ornaments (just don't try to buy her SILVER-PLATED (!) tinsel) as well as snowflakes, wreaths, and candycanes from regular pipe cleaners. I made some snowflakes and candycanes too - very easy, fast, and cheap.

- I made a paper chain using strips of paper I cut from an old book (a dictionary). This idea I copied from an anthropologie store display, and I love it. My roomate isn't as crazy about it, but she's coming around. Glue stick works well to form the loops.

- We also bought a bunch of wooden cutout shapes from the craft store and decorated them with paint, glitter and sequins. These things are CHEAP - like $0.25/each - and look great with glitter. Even if you just cover them in one color of glitter, with no other decoration, they look nice and elegant. Again, this is something Martha is advocating too, but she use glass glitter and the finest hardwoods to make it expensive.

- I bought some fake fruit on sale after christmas last year, and I covered it in spray glue and clear glitter. The glitter is very pearlescent, so they look a little like disco fruit, but I like them.

-Fill in the tree with real candycanes. Cheap and cute.

-Try adding glitter touches to pinecones, or spray paint walnuts gold and hang them.

-In preschool, we made gingerbread men using clay. They must have rolled it out for us, and we just cut out the little guys with a cookie cutter. I have seen air/oven-dryable clay that looks like regular clay at craft stores. It is brown and looks gingerbread-like.