Kid Approved Paint Chip Ornaments

Kid Approved Paint Chip Ornaments:

We walked through Home Depot rather briskly. I was, as usual, in a rush. I’m not sure where we just came from, or where we were going, but time was of the essence.

Our cart was full of flower pots and dirt. Of course, I grabbed the cart with the sticky wheel, you know, the one that announces your arrival several minutes ahead of time with a loud “thud, thud, thud” against the cold concrete floor.

Suddenly, something caught Jonah’s attention. He quickly turned his head and pointed in the opposite direction. “Mama, Wook! All those COLORS! Go there, pretty please, let’s wook at COLORS!”

Jonah and I have a homeschool preschool curriculum we work on every day. This week’s theme is “COLORS” – so when we passed the paint department with their rainbow of paint chips, Jonah was naturally drawn to it.

We stopped and grabbed a couple of paint chips in his favorite colors. As we picked through the dark greens, sun-bright yellows, sky blues and festive reds, I knew EXACTLY what we were going to use them for… so here we are: Paint Chip Ornaments!

Supplies Needed to Make Paint Chip Ornaments:

Paint chips: Large green paint chip, smaller paint chips in the colors of your choice.
Wooden craft sticks
Glue sticks
Fancy craft paper punch
String/ twine
Scissors
Tape

[bctt tweet=”Adorable #ChristmasOrnament for toddlers and preschoolers using #PaintChips” username=”MamaintheNow”]

How to make paint chip ornaments:

Collect paint chips at your local paint/ hardware store.
- We used two large green paint chips per Christmas tree.
Place two large green paint chips back to back and trim them into large triangles.
Using your fancy craft paper punch, and go to town on the smaller paint chips punching out small festive shapes.
- We used a “dove” and a “heart” shaped punch, as the ornaments for our Christmas trees.
- This part was something Jonah (3.5 years old) loved doing. (It is great to develop their fine motor skills and hand strength.)
- We made a small pile of “ornaments” for the tree and then flipped them over with the color side up – also a great fine motor exercise because those small clippings can be hard to grab.
Using a glue stick, place “ornaments” all over the green side of the Christmas trees.
- You can choose to be as OCD about the ornament placement as you please. Doing this craft with a toddler/ preschooler, leaves you with a beautiful randomly decorated tree – and that’s part of the charm.

Tape a wooden craft stick on the back of one of the green paint chip Christmas trees, let the bottom of the craft stick hang out by 1.5”, so it’s the trunk of the tree.
Tape the string/ twine in a loop on the back on one of the trees. This is how the ornament will hang on your Christmas tree.
Slather the back side of the Christmas tree with glue, which is always fun for toddlers/ preschoolers/ adults. Put the two Christmas tree shapes back to back and hold them in place for a few minutes, until the glue dries. You can also place the ornament under a heavy book.
Once the glue is dry, you can write your child’s name and the year on one side of the Christmas tree trunk and use it as a handmade Christmas present to loving grandparents!

Voila! You have yourself an adorable handmade Christmas tree ornament, using supplies that cost next to nothing, with lots of fine motor exercises and opportunities to talk about colors with your toddler/ preschooler.