DIY Children’s Art Keepsake Ornament
Learn how to create a fun keepsake ornament using your child’s artwork! These sweet ornaments make great gifts for family members.
It’s day 11 of my 12 Days of Holiday Crafts series! Today I’m sharing how to create a sweet keepsake ornament using your child’s artwork! I chose to create my ornaments on wood rounds I found at Joann Fabrics. They already had the holes pre-drilled making things super easy. I’ve also seen these fun wooden cut-outs in the shape of ornaments now that the holiday craft supplies are out. Those those would be a great option too!
To transfer the artwork onto the ornament, I used T-Shirt Transfer paper. I usually use this for transferring images to fabric, but was pleasantly surprised how well it worked transferring the images to wood! I tried using both the Dark T-Shirt and Light T-Shirt transfer sheets. They both worked well with different results. Check out the tutorial for the how-to and to decide which type of transfer sheets would be best for your project!
How to Make an Ornament with a Child’s Artwork
Supplies Needed:
- Wood Slice Ornaments – you can buy individual ones from your local craft store.
- T-Shirt Transfer Sheets – Both Dark T-Shirt Transfers and Light T-Shirt Transfers will work. Check out the tutorial to see the difference!
- Iron
- Yarn
- Sharpie Marker – for writing name and year
Choosing the Transfer Paper
These are the different packages I had in my stash. I used a variety pack that came with both Dark and Light T-Shirt Transfer sheets – it measured 4″ x 6″. If you are making lots of these keepsake ornaments for family or friends you can buy full sheets and print multiple images per sheet.
The Dark T-Shirt transfer sheets will keep your image on a white background whereas the Light T-Shirt transfer sheets have a clear background and require you to reverse your image. You can see in the pictures below the difference between the sheets.
For this Christmas tree colored in with crayon, I like how the Light transfer sheet showed more of the crayon markings but I like how the Dark transfer sheets are brighter because of the white background. Both work! For my snowman I chose to use the Dark transfer sheets so the white of the snowman stayed white and didn’t become clear.
Making the Ornaments
Step One: Ask your child to draw something special for the ornament or use a drawing they have already done. If your child is too young to draw a picture that’s okay! I created the star ornament pictured above using a page of scribbles my toddler did.
You can also draw a simple picture and ask your child to color it in with marker or crayon. The christmas tree ornament pictured above was a line drawing I did with Sharpie and my child colored it in with crayon.
Step Two: Scan your child’s artwork or take a picture of it if you don’t have access to a scanner. Once the image is on your computer resize it to fit your wooden round. If you choose to use the Light T-Shirt transfer paper you will need to reverse the image. Print the image onto the T-Shirt transfer paper you chose.
Step Three: Carefully cut out the image.
Step Four: Iron it onto the wooden round following the package directions. The directions for ironing are different depending on which type of transfer sheet you decide to use. Whether you choose the Dark or Light transfer sheets, be sure to use your iron on the lowest heat setting. It doesn’t take a lot of heat for these to adhere to the wood.
Step Five: Use yarn or ribbon to add a hanging loop. Or use the jute rope the rounds come with.
Leave the ornament as is or add your child’s name and the year with Sharpie. Your ornament is finished! Yay! Each year my kids create handmade ornaments and gift them to family members. It’s become a fun tradition we enjoy doing each year! If you love making handmade ornaments, be sure to check out my other fun craft tutorials.
Tomorrow is the last day of my Crafty Christmas series! Check out all of the projects thus far under my “12 Days of Holiday Crafts” page.
