How To Bring Nature Inside With Homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments

Looking for a way to decrease the crazy this Christmas? Nature-centered surroundings tend to help me do that. There’s a very simple way to bring nature into your home and Christmas décor this season, helping you re-focus and ground yourself in the beautiful and natural homemade Christmas ornaments with a touch of festive cheer.

Homemade Christmas Ornaments

In this article, I’ll show you how to create simple homemade Christmas tree ornaments using (mostly) natural materials: glitter gold pinecones, dried citrus ornaments, and cinnamon stick bundles. Enjoy!

3 Ingenious homemade Christmas ornaments ideas you can make:

unique decoration to your Christmas tree
unique decoration to your Christmas tree

1. Homemade Glitter Gold Pinecones

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Spread the pinecones out onto a drop cloth in a well-ventilated area.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Shake up a can of gold spray paint. In this case, the glossier gold, the better.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Open up a container of gold glitter flakes, and have it within arm’s reach and at the ready.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Spray about 2 square feet of pinecones with the gold spray paint. Quickly sprinkle glitter over the wet paint.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Repeat, working in small (approx. 2 sqft) sections until you’ve completed all the pinecones. Let them dry for 30 minutes, then flip them over. Repeat.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Tie fishing line around the pinecones and hang on the Christmas tree. Or use them as part of a natural vignette. The gold and glitter is subtle but really adds to the sparkle of the season.

Related: 30 Cheap Christmas Decorations You Can DIY

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

2. Homemade Dried Citrus Ornaments

 

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Wash your fruit, and dry the rind. You can use limes, lemons, oranges, any citrus fruit, really.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Slice the fruit fairly thin.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Recommend about 1/4″ thicknesses so they all dry uniformly.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Use a small, pointy object (e.g., a fork tine) to create a hole near the rind. This will be useful after the fruit has dried, so you don’t have to poke a hole to hang the fruit at that point.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Try not to get the hole too big; it will actually be larger after the fruit has dried, so keep it small.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Place your sliced fruit on a food dehydrator tray.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Fill up the tray, leaving plenty of space between the fruits so air can circulate. This will help all the ornaments to dry uniformly.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

With lemons, be sure to take any seeds out after slicing the fruit and before placing them onto the dehydrator tray.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Spread these fruits out as well. Stack the trays.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Run the dehydrator on 135F until the fruits are dried out, about 4 hours.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Check the fruits after that to make sure they are completely dried.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Loop fishing line or a paper clip through the hole in the fruit. Hang the fruit.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Any type of citrus fruit works well for this and looks lovely against the evergreen of a Christmas tree – lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, etc.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

3. Cinnamon Stick Bundle Ornaments

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

You can use any size of cinnamon sticks for this natural ornament. This example uses 6” sticks, although you can have fun with 8”, 10”, and even 12” sticks as well. Bundles of three work well.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Wrap fishing line twice around the bundle of three cinnamon sticks; tie in a square knot with about 4” of length leftover. That extra length of fishing line will become the loop to hang the ornament.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Wrap jute twine around the center of the cinnamon stick bundle, over the wrapped fishing line to hide it.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

You can make this twine wrapping as wide or narrow as you want.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Grab some anise seeds. These are beautiful star-shaped pods, aren’t they amazing?

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Decide where you want the anise star, and place a generous drop of hot glue in that spot.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Press the anise star onto the glue and hold it for a few minutes until the glue cools.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

You can stick with a single anise star, or you can add multiple.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Here is a cinnamon stick bundle ornament with small jute twine and three anise seed pods.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Play around with the ratios of twine to anise stars – more twine, applied more densely in the center of the cinnamon stick bundle, provides a sweet foundation to a single anise pod.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Less twine and more anise stars is a combination that looks rustic and homey.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

However you choose to incorporate these two natural pieces, you really can’t go wrong. The end result is going to be a lovely, natural Christmas tree ornament that smells as good as it looks.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

You can also use dried citrus fruit on your cinnamon stick ornaments. Thread the fishing line through the hole you formed in the fruit before drying it.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

The fishing line will hold the fruit to the cinnamon sticks, but a drop or two of hot glue will hold the fruit in place.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

An anise star glued on top of the fruit completes the look nicely. The fruit gives a nice pop of color and dimension to the natural cinnamon sticks.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

If you want to step outside the realm of total natural ornamentation, consider adding some bakers’ twine to the bundle. Red and white striped feels pepperminty and festive. Secure your three cinnamon sticks together in a bundle with fishing line.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Wrap the bakers’ twine around the bundle in one direction.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Wrap the twine back the other way, over top of the first round of bakers’ twine and leaning the opposite way.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Tie it off on the top or back; it doesn’t really matter which.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

The end result is a sweet blend of traditional and modern natural Christmas tree ornamentation.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

A modification using bakers’ twine involves wrapping the twine just on one half of the cinnamon stick bundle.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

Attach a dried lemon slice via your fishing line.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

And hot glue an anise pod to help the transition between bakers’ twine and dried lemon. I love this combination – fresh and simple and very natural all around.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

You could wrap a denser version of bakers’ twine in the center of your cinnamon stick bundle and add a single anise star with hot glue.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

This is such a simple way to add dimension and unique decoration to your Christmas tree. Personally, I love the distinct look of the 6” cinnamon sticks. They’re not as common in cooking as shorter cinnamon sticks and, therefore, add a special touch to the Christmas tree.

unique decoration to your Christmas tree

It’s amazing just how festive all-natural objects can be, both on their own and combined. Wouldn’t these look so lovely with the other homemade DIY natural Christmas tree ornaments in this article?