Yarn Ball Ornaments

Reuse plastic shopping bags and bottle caps to make these easy and affordable homemade yarn ball ornaments.

I love ornaments. Whenever we go on vacation or to some place new, I try to find an ornament to remember our trip by. Every year I make photo ornaments of the family, my kids and the dog. I date them and LOVE putting my tree up to see all of the photos we have in the short six years my oldest has been on this earth.

I tell myself every year I’m going to buy a pile of themed ornaments and decorate my tree in one theme. And every year I open my ornament boxes and the idea of a coordinating tree goes out the window. I fall in love with all the ornaments I had as a kid, the new ones I’ve made, the handmade ones my children have made and the ones I’ve purchased from our vacations and received as gifts.

I also like to have my kids make a gift for their teachers and grandparents every year. I prefer they make an ornament because it seems like almost everyone loves Christmas and isn’t stuck with a vase of pipe cleaner flowers that usually hits the trash.

How to Make Yarn Ball Ornaments

You’ll need these materials to get started:

Plastic Shopping Bags
Masking Tape
Yarn - I used Deborah Norville's Collection Serenity Chunky Tweeds in Claret (red), Cypress (green) and Eclipse (blue)
Scissors
Paint Brush
Plastic Bottle Caps (or leftovers from the bottle cap spiders)
Black Acrylic Paint
Black Pipe Cleaners
Cordless Drill with Drill bit or Hammer and Large Nail
Hot Glue

Directions:

Use a drill with a drill bit to drill into the center of the bottle cap. Alternatively you can pound a nail into the center of the bottle cap with a hammer and nail. Use black paint to paint your bottle caps. Two coats may be necessary. Set aside to dry.
Slightly flatten your shopping bag onto the table and roll it into a ball starting from the center inward. Squeeze the ball to remove the air from the bag and secure with masking tape.
I used 2 bags for the large ball (just stack on on top of the other before rolling into a ball) and 1 bag for the smaller balls.
Begin to wrap your ball with yarn. Don’t wrap too tightly, but wrap tight enough that it stays secure. Continue until the entire ball is covered. Trim the end and secure it with a dab of hot glue.
Cut a piece of pipe cleaner to 6” in length. Fold it in half and thread the two loose ends through the center of the bottle cap. Fold about 1" of the each end inside the bottle cap to prevent it from coming out of the cap. Secure the cap to the yarn ball with hot glue.
Continue with as many yarn balls as you’d like and hang on your tree!