DIY Star Ornaments – Easy & Affordable Christmas Craft!

These DIY star ornaments are so easy and cheap to make! They’re perfect to hang on your tree or make great homemade ornaments as gifts.

DIY Star Ornaments

After being seriously Christmas inspired by Pinterest this year, I set out to find some really special decorations that we could enjoy. We’ve been married for 5 years, but this is the first year that we have a Christmas tree! To say I’m excited about it is definitely an understatement.

When I was shopping around for our Christmas decorations on Etsy and eBay this year, I kept seeing adorable star ornaments. A lot of the ornaments in this style were made with fabric or felt, but I had a feeling I could make them a lot more easily and cheaply with some simple dollar store items.

I love this vintage style of design on ornaments, and I think they would make the perfect beautiful, but meaningful, homemade present. I know I would love to receive one of these as a gift from someone!

Optional Changes

If you don’t want to use styrofoam, I think these ornaments would also be beautiful made with wood stars. They would work best with either flat or hollow stars, just because the weight of solid wood 3D stars would require you to drill eye hooks into the wood to create something for the tree hooks to attach to securely.

You could even try making this with a heavyweight card stock if you want to make paper stars. I think that would be so easy because then you could just use a pen to draw out the design.

How to Make DIY Christmas Ornaments 

This project took a little bit of time (just because the paint needed time to dry), but the steps were super easy! The full directions to make these homemade Christmas ornaments are in the printable card at the bottom of the post, but here’s a condensed version of the directions:

1. Paint the stars. 2 – 3 coats on the front (depending on how opaque your paint is) seemed to work the best.
2. Draw the pattern on using a paint pen.
3. Glue the stars onto ornament hooks.
4. Enjoy hanging on your Christmas tree!

How to Make a Christmas Tree Star Topper

I think this would make a beautiful, affordable, and unique tree topper if you can find a large enough styrofoam star! Some of the larger styrofoam stars are made with a rougher styrofoam, so be sure to look for one that has a smooth finish.

To make the base, I think the easiest solution would be to look for an inexpensive tree topper at the thrift store or dollar store, and upcycle that base onto your new topper.

After looking around online, I found these products that I think would work really well (affiliate links). The first is a large styrofoam star with a more classic Christmas shape. The second is a base for your tree topper.

What Worked

These DIY star ornaments were super easy to make, and these are the steps that made the biggest difference.

1. Paint the back 1 and 1/2 times. What I mean by that is to overshoot the edges when you’re painting one of the coats on the front. That way you only have to paint the back once to get the appearance of full coverage (at least for all of the ways that the ornaments would be visible).
2. Use a paint pen to add the design instead of trying to use a paintbrush. I used a fine tip oil-based paint pen, and I loved the intricate designs I was able to easily make with it!
3. Add the designs in sections by drawing the same section of the design to each star, rather drawing the entire design on a whole star at once. I like doing this because it gives each part of the design a chance to dry so it won’t smudge.
4. Glue the ornament hook directly to the star. At first I thought I would need to glue metal loops to the stars and then attach the hooks to the loops. I could’ve done that, but it wasn’t necessary. If you’re going to glue loops to the ornaments, be sure to glue them towards the top of the star point. If you glue the hook too low, the weight of the top star point will fall forward, causing the design to face the floor.

What You’ll Need

To make these star ornaments you’ll need a couple of tools (affiliate links):

1. Low-temperature glue gun. I like to use a low-temperature glue gun when I’m working with styrofoam because it works better than a standard high-temperature glue gun. This is the one I use – it’s affordable and I love how well it’s lasted over the couple of years that I’ve had it.
2. Paintbrush. I use this set for pretty much all of my crafting because it always has one that will work for my project.
3. Styrofoam stars. I bought mine at the Dollar Tree, but if they don’t carry them at your local dollar store, you could try buying these ones.
4. Acrylic paint. I used a pearlescent red paint.
5. Paint pen. I used this fine tip oil-based paint pen, and I loved it! The lines were slightly more transparent than I would have liked, but the lines dried quickly and I was able to create really precise designs with it.
6. Hot glue sticks. You don’t need anything fancy or with amazing strength here. Just the basic ones will work.
7. Ornament hooks. I’m sure you’ve got some kicking around in your Christmas decorations. If not, you can find them at the dollar store, or buy these ornament hooks online.

DIY Christmas Crafts

If you’re looking for more easy dollar store Christmas crafts, be sure to check these out!

• Boho Garland
• DIY Star Garland

Click here to pin this project for later!

Yield: 7 ornaments

DIY Star Ornaments

Print

These DIY star ornaments are so easy and cheap to make! They're perfect to hang on your tree or make great homemade ornaments as gifts.

Active Time 45 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Difficulty Easy

Estimated Cost $5 or Less

Materials

• 7 Styrofoam Stars
• Acrylic Paint
• Fine Tip Paint Pen
• Hot Glue Sticks
• Ornament Hook

Tools

• Paintbrush
• Low-Temperature Hot Glue Gun

Instructions

1. Choose the paint color you'd like to use as the base color for your stars. Paint the front side of each star using a small to medium sized paintbrush. Depending on how opaque the color you choose is, you may need several coats. I painted the front side 3 times and the back side once.
2. Once the stars have dried, use a fine-tip paint pen to add the decoration. It's helpful to draw one part of the decoration on each star before adding in more of the decoration because it allows the decorated part of each star to dry before adding more so you don't risk smudging the design.
3. Start by drawing the border around the edge of each star.
4. Once the edges have dried, draw in the center shape design (I love circles, hearts, and stars here).
5. Once the center design has dried, draw your desired design on the right side of one of the styrofoam star points. Rotate the styrofoam star and repeat the design on the right side of the remaining 4 points, and let dry. Note: I start on the right side of this design because I'm right handed, but if you're left handed, it will be easier to start on the left side.
6. Use the lines from the design on the right side of each star point as a guide to determine where each part of the design should start for the left side of each star point. The designs don't need to be perfect to look good, but it the center point always matches up, it will look best. Draw in the left side of the design on each star point, and let dry.
7. Heat your glue gun. Add a dollop of glue to the back of one of the star ridges. It should be about halfway down from the top edge of the star point. Glue each star to an ornament hook, making sure that the part of the hook that will hook onto the tree is facing away from the ornament (you may have to twist or rotate the hook a little first).

Notes

If you used a center design other than a star that has a clear "up" direction (for example, a heart), make sure that design is facing up before gluing it onto the ornament hook.

I drew a different design on each star, and I love the variety and look of that. Since I can't describe how to draw each design in the directions here, it would probably be easiest to look at the photos or watch the video in the post above. Alternatively, if you'd prefer a written description for how to draw out one of the star designs, you can read that in my DIY Star Garland post.

Try making these super cute DIY star ornaments for Xmas to hang on your Christmas tree!