Easy Pipe Cleaner Tree Ornaments
Welcome to Day 1 of our Pipe Cleaner Christmas Ornaments series! We’re going to make a new and different Christmas tree ornament every day this week – using nothing but pipe cleaners! They’re fun, they’re super simple, and they’re great for those of us who want to make Christmas crafts with the kids but don’t want to buy a million supplies.
This pipe cleaner tree ornament is so simple to make and it looks so pretty on the Christmas tree! Want to the know the best part? You only need 2 pipe cleaners to make it. YES! You know I love simple crafts that only use pipe cleaners!
OK, I guess if you want to hang them on the tree, you will also need some string. And a pair of scissors. But come on, as far as crafts go, that is pretty darn simple!
You can make this little Christmas tree ornament in less than 5 minutes. In fact, you can make the whole series of pipe cleaner Christmas ornaments in less than half an hour. And for each and every one of them you’ll only need pipe cleaners! (And string… and scissors…)
We’ll be putting up a new post every day this week, along with a simple video you can follow for each of them. The links to each of the posts are below. We’ll update the list of links below as the posts go live!
Check out our video for how to make Pipe Cleaner Tree Ornaments:
If you have those sparkly pipe cleaners out already, you might as well make some more easy pipe cleaner ornaments! Check out our tutorials for:
How to make Pipe Cleaner Tree Ornaments:
The full printable instructions are at the end of this post. Here’s a list of affiliate links to products on Amazon that are similar to the supplies we used:
- 12 inch Sparkly Pipe Cleaners (1 green and 1 gold)
- Thin Metallic Cord
- Scissors
All you need is 1 green pipe cleaner and 1 gold pipe cleaner. I think the sparkly pipe cleaners make really pretty ornaments! But if you only have the regular fluffy ones, those will work as well. I always say it’s best to use whatever craft supplies you have on hand rather than buying new ones!
Take the green pipe cleaner and bend about 1 inch of one end to a 90 degree angle to make the tree trunk. Then bend it back and forth in a wavy zig-zag pattern gradually tapering to small zig zags as you get near the top.
I’ll be honest – it took me two tries to get the zig zags of the tree right! I had to unbend it and try again. So don’t worry if it takes you a few tries! Simply un-bend it and try again.
Once you’re happy with your tree shape, you can start working on the star. This time using a gold pipe cleaner, bend a small zig zag pattern at one end of the pipe cleaner. The zig zags should be about 1/2 inch long and you’ll need exactly 5 zigs and 5 zags (believe me, I can’t believe I just typed that, but hopefully you get what I mean! It’s harder than you’d think to describe this in words!) since a star has 5 points.
Leave about 1 inch after your last zig zag, then cut the pipe cleaner, as shown in the photo below.
To shape your star, pinch each point and slightly bend it around into a circle. The goal is to shape the points into a star shape with 5 points. It might be easier to see what I mean in the video above.
Remember how we left that 1 inch piece of pipe cleaner at the end? Bend it straight back behind the star like in the photo below. Then use that short length of gold pipe cleaner to wrap it around the green pipe cleaner end at the top of the tree.
You might need to re-adjust your star once you’re done. Slightly pinch each point to fix your star shape.
Finally,cut a length of gold cord, ribbon, twine or whatever you have around the house (even dental floss will work!) so you can hang it on the tree. I found this string at the dollar store in the craft section.
There you have it!! A super cute and sparkly mini tree ornament that you can hang on your Christmas tree!
Easy Pipe Cleaner Tree Ornaments
Materials
- 1sparkly green pipe cleaner
- 1sparkly gold pipe cleaner
Instructions
- Bend about 1 inch of one end of the green pipe cleaner to a 90 degree angle to make the tree trunk.
- Then bend the green pipe cleaner back and forth in a wavy zig-zag gradually tapering to small zig zags as you get near the end of your pipe cleaner (which will be the top point of your tree).
- Using the gold pipe cleaner, bend a small zig zag pattern at one end. You’ll need exactly 5 zigs and 5 zags that are about 1/2 inch long each. Cut the pipe cleaner, leaving about 1 inch after the last zig zag.
- To shape your star, pinch each point of the zig zags and slightly bend them around into a circle to form a star shape with 5 points. Bend the remaining 1 inch of pipe cleaner straight out from the back of star.
- Wrap the short length of gold pipe cleaner sticking out from behind the star around the green pipe cleaner end at the top of the tree.
- Cut a length of gold cord, ribbon, or twine and tie it around the top of your tree shape.
- Hang your pipe cleaner tree ornament on the Christmas tree!
These pipe cleaner tree ornaments are SO CUTE and they’re so easy to make! With only 2 pipe cleaners you can make this awesome Christmas craft in less than 5 minutes! This is such a great way to make homemade Christmas ornaments that are both inexpensive and lots of fun! Be sure to check out our other 5 tutorials in this series for the shapes that go along with this cute little Christmas tree!
Check out ALL the pipe cleaner ornaments in this series:
(we’ll update the links as we post them!)
Our book Low-Mess Crafts for Kids is loaded with 72 fun and simple craft ideas for kids! The projects are fun, easy and most importantly low-mess, so the clean up is simple!
Where to buy:
You can purchase Low-Mess Crafts for Kids from Amazon
