Easy to Make
Christmas Ornaments

geodesic easy to make christmas ornaments

Sparkle up your Christmas tree with these easy to make Christmas ornaments. Don't let their intricate geometric design fool you... they're surprisingly simple to make!

Making these decorations is as simple as cutting out some paper circles and gluing them together. The neat thing about these easy to make Christmas ornaments is that you can make several different shapes depending on how many circles you use. My favorite is this one:

Easy to Make Christmas Ornaments - Geodesic Ball

It's a beautiful mathematical shape called an icosahedron , which is a type of geodesic sphere with 20 faces. So, there you go, you can impress your grandma with your mathematical knowledge of geodesic Christmas ornaments :-)

These homemade decorations are a great way to upcycle leftover pieces of scrapbooking paper into something beautiful. But if you don't have any scrapbooking paper then never fear because you can download and print my digital scrapbooking paper which I designed especially for this project.

Materials for Easy to Make Christmas Ornaments

For these homemade Christmas tree decorations you will need:

  • Colorful scrapbooking paper (or print your own )
  • Something circular to trace around, approximately 1.5 inches in diameter*
  • Pencil
  • Glue stick
  • Ribbon

* If you use circles 1.5 inches in diameter then your finished ornament will be 3.5 inches in diameter.

Optional: Printable scrapbook paper $4.70 USD

Print your own scrapbook paper for this project. Download a sample

Make Christmas Ornaments - Printable Paper

Christmas Ornaments Printable Paper: $4.70 USD
Instant Download

Buy Now

Tips:

  • This digital scrapbooking paper is especially designed for this project, with the right number and size of circles to make your life easier.

  • Printing onto normal paper works OK and printing onto card stock works even better.

Instructions for Easy to make Christmas Ornaments

Step 1: Cut out 20 circles

Cut out 20 circles of colored paper or card. Each circle should be about 1.5 inches diameter. Use a circle punch if you have one, otherwise just trace around a big glue stick and cut out with scissors.

If you're a perfectionist then you might want to make sure that two colors never appear next to each other on the finished ornament. In that case you'll need to use at least three colors, with 6, 6, and 8 circles of each color.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 1

Step 2: Make triangle template

Option 1: If you're using my printable scrapbooking paper then cut out the triangle template and fold it into a triangle.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 2 triangle template

Option 2: If you're using your own scrapbooking paper, then cut out one extra circle (it can be from plain paper) the same size as all the others. Fold it in half vertically and horizontally to make a cross-shaped crease. Then fold each side in to meet the center like this, and you'll end up with an equilateral triangle.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 2 triangle template

Step 3: Fold all the circles into triangles

Place your triangle template on top of a circle and fold up the circle into a triangle.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 3 fold triangles

Repeat for all the other circles.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 3 fold all triangles

Step 4: Glue 5 triangles together

Glue five of the triangles together to make a sort of "lid" like this.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 4 glue 5 triangles together

Step 5: Add a ribbon loop

Cut a short length of ribbon, fold it in half, and tie a knot to make a loop.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 5 tie ribbon loop

Use a pencil or other pointy item to poke the ribbon through the hole in the middle of the "lid". Pull the ribbon all the way until the knot stops at the hole.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 5 poke ribbon through hole

Step 6: Glue 5 more triangles together

Glue another five triangles together to make the bottom of your ornament. Now you have a top and a bottom. If you're a perfectionist, make the bottom a mirror image of the top.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 6 glue another 5 triangles together

Step 7: Glue 10 triangles together in a strip

Glue 10 triangles together to make a long strip which will become the middle of your ornament.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 7 glue 10 triangles in a strip

Step 8: Glue the top, middle and bottom together

Final assembly time! To finish your homemade Christmas ornament, all that's left to do is glue the top, middle, and bottom together. I like to do it in this order but you can do it however you like.

  1. Glue top and bottom to middle
  2. Glue middle to itself to make a circle
  3. Glue top onto middle
  4. Glue bottom onto middle
easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 8 final assembly

Finished!

Here's the finished ornament - isn't it pretty?

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic finished

How did yours turn out? If you have any questions or comments, or just want to say hi, please use the comment form below.

Different-shaped Christmas Ornaments to Make

You can use the same idea to make ornaments with 4, 6, 8 and 10 sides.

Once you've made the 20-sided ornament you'll find that making any of these other shapes is a cinch.

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 8 final assembly 4-sided ornament

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 8 final assembly 6-sided ornament - it looks a bit like a peanut, don't you think?

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 8 final assembly 8-sided ornament - I think this shape is really cute, like a juicy little apple

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 8 final assembly 10-sided ornament - a multicolored tomato?

easy to make christmas ornaments geodesic step 8 final assembly 10-sided ornament - top view

What next?

Looking for more easy to make Christmas ornaments? You might like some of my other tutorials...

Or see my complete collection of homemade Christmas ornament tutorials.


 

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