Acorn Christmas Ornaments for Church
Acorn Christmas Ornaments
These cute acorn Christmas ornaments were a fun project, and super simple to do. It was also very inexpensive, and they turned out so cute! I’ll share how I did them, and if you have a yard-full of acorns like I do, you can make some for yourself!
*This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you purchase using the links I provided. All opinions are my own.
Nature Inspired Christmas Ornaments
If you’ve been around a while, you know that I make handmade Christmas tree ornaments for my church family every year. You can see some of my past annual Christmas ornaments by clicking here, here and here. You can find out how the tradition started here.
I do have a bit of a theme with this tradition; I love making nature inspired Christmas ornaments. Since we live out in the sticks, we have plenty of nature to choose from. As you go back through those posts I linked above, you’ll see that I’ve made nature Christmas decor with twigs, pinecones, Nandina berries, and branches. I think my love for these rustic type of ornaments started when I was a kid and we strung popcorn and fresh cranberries to decorate the tree with.
A Brief Aside…
Let me just say that I have been gone from this platform for WAY TOO LONG! That is evidenced by the fact the my first post in months is about Christmas ornaments, and it’s almost March, for crying out loud! I’ve been slacking, guys. I love this blog, and I want it to grow into something bigger and better. Well, that’s not going to happen if I don’t post, now is it?
I’m vowing here and now to come back, and to come back with a bang! Ok, maybe this post isn’t much of a bang, but I don’t want to fail to share my acorn Christmas ornaments. I just couldn’t skip over it, because I have spent lots of time working on this post in the past couple of months. I’m done starting projects and not finishing them! Just be on the lookout for more posts on all of my many endeavors, and I sure hope you will all follow along and join in with comments and shares. It would sure help provide some motivation for me to keep going!
An Abundance of Acorns
We have an enormous Oak tree that rains down gobs and gobs of acorns onto our driveway, roof, and walkway. They are literally everywhere. The tree is so old that some of the acorn caps seem freakishly large! (Yes, it’s the oak that grows up through our shop porch, the one I showed you in this post). I kept stepping on them, and one day it just came to me that they’d be perfect for my annual Christmas ornaments.
Of course, I took to Pinterest for inspiration. I did find some cute acorn Christmas ornament ideas there, but I struggled with execution. As usual, I was in a time crunch to get these done, and the ideas I found required me to use acorn caps that were all the same size. I certainly didn’t have time to filter through the thousands of caps I picked up and make sure they all matched up perfectly!
So, as I normally do, I went with my own idea and decided to make cute little hanging Christmas trees out of my acorn caps. I gathered up card stock, ribbon, my glue gun and some patience, all of which I had on hand (ok, maybe not so much on the patience, but I mustered some up).
Church Christmas Ornaments
Since my ultimate goal was to make church Christmas ornaments, I had to find a way to personalize these cute trees and get our church name and the year on them. The basic brown and tan card stock did not excite me, so I decided to make cute little trees to decoupage onto the back of each one out of some music-inspired scrapbook paper (here is a pack that has something similar). Music is my favorite part of church, and I loved being able to represent that in this project.
I made a stencil for an abstract Christmas tree shape and cut out enough to back all of my cute acorn Christmas ornaments, then hand-lettered them with Sharpie metallic markers. I love these markers, because they show up like a paint pen on almost any type of patterned paper! I found mine on Amazon for under $8 for a pack of 6. (<<—that’s a link to buy some for yourself!)
My Nature Inspired Christmas Ornaments
I actually glued the acorn tops to the card stock, then cut out around it to make my trees. I used my hot glue gun (I have one similar to this one from Amazon) to attach the little caps, making sure to glue on a ribbon for hanging underneath the top cap. Next, I glued one red Nandina berry into the center of each acorn cap, and a silver bead in each top cap as sort of a ‘star’ tree topper. I then a few twigs from the berries and some of the little balls that were on the acorn stems (if these little balls have a biological name, I’m not aware of it…balls works, don’t you think?).
All in all, I think these turned out great. They’re very rustic-looking, and definitely nature-inspired Christmas ornaments! I did have to spend some time picking off all the little glue strings that I created by rushing, but I got them all done and delivered to my sweet mother-in-law in time for her to include them in her baskets that she takes around to folks in the community. They make a nice touch to include with all the snacks and goodies that she puts in these baskets, and I know they are much appreciated by the recipients.
You Can Make These, Too!
These are easy handmade ornaments that anyone can do, a simple project that really didn’t take that much time or effort. Too bad you don’t have Madre around to help you…she gathered bag after bag of acorn tops for me, because she’s a living, breathing Energizer Bunny who loves to stay busy. Gathering was probably the hardest part for me, because bending over is for the birds.
I did use a soft, dry paint brush to dust all the dirt and leaves off of each acorn before I glued it down. I also used some Mod Podge and glitter on all the top surfaces to create a bit of a snowy effect, then sprayed each ornament with glitter-infused clear acrylic. I think those extra steps created a nice touch, but you can’t possibly know since I failed to get a picture of the finished product. I told you I was in a rush! And, I didn’t end up keeping one for myself, which I now regret. Here’s the last picture I got (before picking off the ‘cobwebs’, also known as glue strings):
I’m including some links below for some of the items I used to make these acorn Christmas ornaments, and I hope you’ll keep this idea tucked away for Christmas ’18. There is so much you can do with nature, and I know your church members, Sunday School class, or even just your friends and family would love to have a handmade ornament from you to add to their collection. Of course, you should also keep one for yourself! 😉
X,O,X,O, Martie
February 21, 2018 @ 6:10 am
They turned out great!
February 21, 2018 @ 5:13 pm
Thanks!! I wish I had gotten pics of the completely finished project.