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Hosted Holiday Party Ideas: Make Your Own Ornament Party!

Looking for some fun holiday party ideas? Throw a craft party that includes how to make your own ornament.

Last year I decided I wanted to have my friends make their own Christmas gifts!  Throwing an ornament making party was the perfect way to give gifts and hang out with my friends.

I set up 5 different DIY ornament decorating party stations with pictures for inspiration and let my friends craft away.  They all loved it and ask when our next craft party is!

So if you are searching for holiday party ideas, I wanted to throw Make Your Own Ornament party in the ring.  It doesn’t have to cost a lot and everyone will go home with a few handmade ornaments.

ornament making party pinterest

So let’s talk all about how to host your own ornament making party! It really is a pretty easy party to throw!

Decide on Christmas Ornaments to Make

The first thing you’ll need to do is come up with 4-5 easy homemade ornaments you can have your guests make.  I, of course, turned to Pinterest and my own ornaments I’ve made in the past.   

I also have a huge roundup of over 150 DIY Christmas ornaments from other bloggers, so make sure to go check it out to get more inspiration!

I didn’t want to spend a whole bunch of money so I looked through my stash of craft supplies and decided to use as much of what I already had as possible.  I think I ended up only spending about $50 and everyone went home with at least 5 DIY ornaments.  You could easily have all the guests chip in $5 to cover the costs.

One of the easiest ways to make personalized ornaments is with a cutting machine.  I have and love my Cricut.  You can read all about a Cricut and get a ton of Cricut ideas if you aren’t familiar with one. 

You can make a ton of Cricut Christmas projects that aren’t ornaments. So in the end, it saves you a ton of money when you can make all your own Christmas decor and custom gifts!  You can always put one on your own Christmas list!

Supplies Needed for Ornament Craft Party

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from Amazon and/or Cricut.com. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my links (purple text).

These are the ornaments I decided on and the supplies I needed for each.

christmas crafts for adults ornament making party setup
christmas crafts for adults
  • Cork Ornaments:
      • a ton of corks – if you don’t drink as much wine as we do, ask your friends to save theirs!  We have friends giving us bags at a time because they know I love to use them
      • hot glue gun
      • twine or ribbon
      • paint, puffy paint, glitter, embellishments
craft ornament making party
  • Button and Felt Ornaments from Cutesy Crafts
      • felt in light blue, white, red and black – super cheap.  I cut out a bunch of circles, trees, snowman, scarves, and snow pieces with my Cricut beforehand.
      • buttons
      • needles and thread
      • unique stitch (optional) or tacky glue for gluing
ornament making party supplies
craft party
christmas crafts for adults
christmas crafts for adults

Getting Ready for a Craft Party for Adults

A few days before the Christmas ornament making party, I made sure I had all of the supplies and I made a few sample handmade ornaments.  I hung them on my flocked Christmas tree near my front door so they could see what we were making.  I also sent some pictures out beforehand so they knew what to expect.

craft party christmas
craft party christmas ornaments diy
pinterest party ornament decorating

Setting Up for DIY Ornament Party

I ended up using 3 tables for 5 different ornament stations.  My large DIY farmhouse table is in my dining room and I separated it into two sections.  I used Dollar Tree plastic tablecloths and put them over all my tables.

I found a bunch of cute cork ornaments online and printed out a collage of them and put it on the table for inspiration. 

setting up for ornament making party

I also made a cork Christmas tree ornament as a sample.  I hot glued the corks together and tied a piece of twine around the top of the cork before I hot glued it.

cork ornament party
cork ornament party

Then I painted the corks with green chalk paint.  I also had cut out some small circles with my Cricut that they could glue on each cork.

ornament exchange party

On the other end of that table, I placed all the supplies for the snowman felt ornament.  I printed out the pictures from Cutesy Crafts and also had the instructions up on my Ipad so they could follow them if they wanted.   I made a sample of a felt tree ornament.

craft party
holiday party ideas

Cricut Christmas Ornaments Stations

In my kitchen, I set up my Cricut on my island with my laptop and a bunch of vinyl scraps.  Before the party, I cut out a bunch of holiday vinyl decals that they could use for the glitter ornaments or the wooden Christmas ornaments. 

I didn’t weed them, because I wanted to show them how what goes on it to making things with vinyl. But I also wanted them to be able to personalize ornaments, so I ended up cutting a lot of their kiddos’ names during the party.

cricut christmas ornaments party

I also had my wood burning tool set out and a few people tried them out.

christmas crafts for adults

My kitchen table had all the wooden Christmas ornament supplies on it.  I also printed out a collage of some pictures I found on google.

They could mod podge on fabric which I did for my sample and then add a vinyl decal over it.  Or they could paint the wood slices and add vinyl.  

holiday craft party
holiday party ideas

I was so impressed by all their creative ideas!  They were all different.

holiday party ideas craft party
ornament exchange party

The wooden Christmas ornaments were a big hit and each person (there were about 10 guests) got to make 2-3.

pinterest ornament party

Glitter Ornaments Station

My last table was a long folding table I set up in my family room with all of the glitter ornament supplies and acrylic paint for non-glitter ornaments.  I showed them how to make the Christmas bauble ornaments with my glitter ornaments tutorial. 

I had a large egg carton so they could turn their personalized family ornaments upside to dry.

christmas crafts for adults

I had made a Rae Dunn inspired ornament with just white paint and cut out a bunch of Rae Dunn words for them to use, but most of them made more colorful glitter ornaments.   

I like making slices up the transfer paper in between the letters.  This makes it a lot easier to apply vinyl to a curved surface.  You can pull on the transfer paper and manipulate it better.

cricut ornaments rae dunn
cricut ornaments rae dunn

My friends were making all sorts of cool swirled glitter ornaments that I never thought of doing.  This was also a perfect ornament to personalize with names so all of their kids were made their own custom ornament. 

I used my Cricut during the party and cut out names as they were needed.

diy glitter ornaments

I also had paint markers on the table in case they wanted to use their own handwriting but I don’t think they were used.  The Cricut makes the letters always beautiful!

So if you are a craft hoarder like me, this fun holiday make your own ornament party doesn’t cost too much.  I only had to buy the clear ornaments, some felt, and the wood slices.  I almost cut a branch with my miter saw like I did for my Joy decor, but decided to just buy some since I was running out of time.

You can always ask your friends to bring some supplies too.  They can bring glue guns, ribbon, buttons, glitter, scrap fabric, etc.

I hope this gives you some inspiration on other holiday party ideas that are a little different but tons of fun!  If you like this idea and would like to save it for later, simply hover the top left of the image below and PIN It now.

ornament party pinterest
ornament exchange party

Holiday Party Ideas: Make Your Own Ornament Craft Party!

Prep Time: 2 hours
Active Time: 2 hours
Total Time: 4 hours
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: Under $50

Throw an amazing ornament-making craft party on a budget. Fun for all and a great holiday party idea!

Materials

  • Materials for ornaments:
  • Wood Slices
  • Felt
  • Corks
  • Ribbon
  • Fabric
  • Glitter
  • Clear Plastic baubles
  • vinyl

Tools

  • Hot glue gun
  • tacky glue
  • Cricut

Instructions

  1. Set a date and time for your craft party. Send out invitations or evite. Encourage friends to bring food or drinks to share.
  2. 1 week before - go through existing craft supplies and see what you have. Ask friends for corks.
  3. 5-7 days before - Decide which ornaments you want to make. Pick 4 or 5. Order supplies you don't have or go to a craft store.
  4. 2 days before - start prep work. Print out pictures and directions for each ornament. Cut out fabric if needed.
  5. Day before or day of - I like to get everything ready the day before so I'm not stressed the day of. Set up tables. Place craft supplies you have for each ornament at the station. Make each ornament so you have a sample.
  6. Send out a reminder if evite didn't. You can also send a picture of the ornaments you will be making. Add any last-minute items you forgot. If you have a cutting machine, get it out and set up to use during the party.
  7. Have fun! Have guests follow you to each station and give them a quick overview of what they will be doing. Then have them start at whichever station they'd like. Visit each station to see if anyone needs help and see if they'd like a personalized vinyl decal.
  8. I had goodie bags they could put all their ornaments in when they left!

Notes

See post for pictures of table setup and materials that I had available.

Did you make this project?

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Thanks so much for stopping below and please comment below with any questions.

Have a creative day,

leap of faith crafting

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