My family’s Christmas tree is beautiful- it’s a fake one, but it looks so realistic! (Just a side note: I love real trees, but my family had a horrible experience with a real tree- we’ll save that story for another day, maybe next week ;) ). The only problem with our tree is that it is a little lacking in ornaments. When we were first married we had a total of about 4 ornaments on our full-sized treeJ. We have since expanded our collection to about 10 ornaments- woo woo!

We were given a couple of beautiful ornament sets with our tree. They were glass; one set was silver and ice blue, and another set that was bright red and green. However, my husband and I decided to let someone else enjoy them, because we both feel like it really doesn’t fit our family. For one, they’re glass and we have kids;’). But the bigger reason is we like to have ornaments that have sentimental value. My family’s tree growing up was full of ornaments that each had a unique history. Some were handmade by my dad during his childhood, others we received from grandparents or other loved ones. The tree’s ornaments didn’t necessarily coordinate the way a department store tree would, but it was still beautiful and was more special to us than if we had used different ornaments. My husband and I are keeping the tradition alive; we prefer a simple tree of sentimental and handmade ornaments to a beautiful, department- store tree.

This year my son is old enough to really enjoy and appreciate the magic of Christmas; and since our tree is a little lacking in ornaments, I decided we need to make some this year. There are so many cute ornaments that can be made using things that are already in your kitchen!

Baby Food Jars - If you have a baby, chances are you have a lot of these hanging around anyway. You could do all sorts of things with these! Put glitter in water to make mini snow globes, or paint the jars to create snowmen, reindeer- whatever your kids love.

Gingerbread - this is an old classic. I remember my mom making gingerbread cookies to hang on the tree- though they usually didn’t last on the bottom half;). I still can’t smell gingerbread without thinking of Christmas trees and my childhood.

Popcorn - Another classic. Although, a string of popcorn around the tree probably wouldn’t last long at our house;).

Pasta Angels - Using rigatoni, macaroni, and bowtie pasta, you can create cute little angels that would be a fun project for anyone.

Candy canes - this is another classic, but you could also put so many twists on it. You could use a basic red and white candy cane, but you could also use colored ones to help create a theme (e.g. use blue candy canes with snowmen). You could also create candy cane shapes using aluminum foil to give your tree an extra sparkle.

Paper towels - You can create paper towel snowflakes by cutting the towel in several tiny strips, tying them with string, and fluffing them up.

Cupcake liners - You can use colored liners or aluminum ones, but either one could be a cute addition to your tree. You could even trim the edges a little bit to help them resemble snowflakes.

Do you have any ideas for cute ornaments you could make from materials that are in your kitchen? Does your Christmas tree have a theme? Share in the comments below!