Hosting An Ornament Making Party

A fun way to check "buy gifts" off your list and celebrate with friends at the same time.

Planning

Host your party at a time that is less likely to clash with other seasonal events, perhaps on a Saturday morning for example. Tell your friends to dress casually since this will be a “working” party. Remind them to bring bags, egg cartons or boxes to take home their completed ornaments.

Refreshments should be casual and set out before your guests arrive. After all, you don’t want kitchen time to take away from your time explaining ornament projects to your guests.

Your most important preparation will be setting up one or two large tables for crafting. Cover the tables with a protective cloth, newspapers or brown paper. Set up different stations for the ornament projects with all necessary materials and tools for creating them. Make a sample of each ornament so that guests will understand what the finished project should look like. When choosing the ornaments that will be made at your party, look for projects that can be completed within an hour or two so that guests can take them home.

Ornament Ideas to Get You Started

• Angels - Create angel ornaments by securing lace squares over a wooden clothespin with a rubber band. Tie a wide, sheer ribbon in a large bow around the angel’s neck from front to back to create the wings. Use a hot glue gun to attach a circle of gold star wire to the back of the head for a halo. Draw a face using a fine tip marker. Finish by hot gluing a loop of ¼ inch gold ribbon behind the wings for a hanger.

• Scented Candle Buckets - Create a festive candle holder that can do double duty as a tree ornament when not in use. Place a small, scented votive candle in a mini galvanized bucket. Thread festive glass beads on red or green colored beading wire, and gently wrap around the bucket handle to cover, twisting the ends at both sides to secure. Use a paint pen to write a holiday greeting on the bucket.

• Festive Photo Frames - Tell your guests to bring along a photo of each person for whom they are making a gift. Take a small, unfinished wooden frame, and glue on decorative embellishments of choice, or use a paint pen to write a holiday greeting. Sprinkle with festive glitter and adhere with a spray glue adhesive. When dry, place the photo in the frame. Attach the frame using a hot glue gun to a wide holiday ribbon with wire edges that is double the length of your frame.

• Candy Filled Glass Ball Ornaments - Fill clean (inside and out), clear glass balls with small candies such as small pillow peppermints, red and green coated chocolates, or any other festive small candy that will fit into the opening of the ornament when you remove the top. Tie a holiday colored ribbon on top with a square knot and bow for secure hanging, since these ornaments will be a bit heavier than the others.

If your friends have young children, you may want to include them at this party too. If you do, remember to serve food and drinks that they will enjoy. A kids’ table for eating, followed by crafting will keep the kids together and away from the more adult level projects. Here are simple holiday ornament projects that children can do with minimal supervision.

• Paper Chains - Provide them with colorful sheets of construction paper and show them how to cut out strips. Give them markers and crayons to decorate the strips, before creating the chains. They can either glue the strips together in a chain, or staple the links together if they are old enough to manage a stapler.

• Paper Snowflakes - Provide a stack of white paper circles. Show the children how to fold the paper and cut out triangles in the folds to create snowflakes. Give them a single hole paper punch so they can punch a hole at the top of each one and tie on a white string for hanging.

• Pipe Cleaners & Beads - Provide red, green and white pipe cleaners and large pony beads that will fit over the stems. Have the children thread the beads on the pipe cleaner, bend the ends to hold the beads, and form them into holiday shapes such as stars, candy canes, or snow men. Finally, give them pieces of ribbon to tie on for hanging.

• Holiday Bell Wreaths - Once again provide pipe cleaners, but give the children small bells to thread onto the stems to create a wreath. Twist together the ends to form a circle, and tie on a red or green ribbon for hanging.