This DIY ornament wreath is a fantastic little DIY that you can put together in an hour for an elegant bit of Christmas decor!

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Since moving back into a home of our own post-deployment, I’ve been DIYing like crazy. Call it nesting – the non-pregnancy kind, for the record – but I’ve been cooking, baking, decorating, and making like crazy lately! 

So it’s no surprise that I wanted to give my Christmas decor a bit of a refresh this year! Most of what I have is inherited from grandparents – as they’ve downsized their homes, I’ve taken their Christmas decorations. Just call my style “mismatched-grandma-chic.”  

I wanted something simple enough that I could DIY but that wouldn’t necessarily look DIY’d. I wanted to up the elegance in my Christmas decorations game. 

This wreath is a great way to use those beautiful classic ornaments in a unique way! It’s elegant and makes a statement, whether you hang it on your front door or over the mantle. 

You can do this in whatever color scheme you want: if monochromatic is your thing, this can be really beautiful. This time, I wanted to use the classic Christmas colors to add a splash to our white walls.  

I’ve been wanting to make this for a long time – so long that last year, I bought the ornaments on after-Christmas clearance at Target. So if you don’t make it this Christmas, pin this post and head out on the 26th to stock up on sale ornaments for next year! 

I went with shatterproof ornaments for this project. They’re plastic, so if they get banged around a bit when you pull it out of storage every year they won’t break. 

I attached mine to a ribbon before adding the ornaments. This hides the knot and ensures that it won’t come undone later. If you’re planning to lean it on a shelf or mantle, you can skip this step. 

I also didn’t have any rhyme or reason to the placement of colors, textures or shapes. It’s up to you if that’s important, but I find that the mix is eye-catching as it is and it would’ve been too fiddly to figure out the math of putting a clear pattern in there. 

DIY Ornament Wreath

Supplies: 

• lots of ornaments in small and large sizes (I used 78 large and 30 small)
• floral or styrofoam wreath form (mine was 18 inches)
• wax paper
• hot glue gun
• 18 inches of ribbon (optional)

Steps: 

Cover a clean surface with enough wax paper to sit underneath the wreath form.

If you’re using one, tie the ribbon on. I wrapped it around the form once, then tied the ends together on the underside. This means that the ribbon’s ends will be hidden under the ornaments when you’re done. 

Start gluing the larger size of ornaments to the inside edge of the wreath form. Glue them close together, without big gaps, but don’t sweat perfection here.

You can see how to work around the ribbon here. Glue over top the ribbon on all rows except the outside edge. It’s okay if one goes between the front ribbon and the back (like the red ornament in the above photo).

Once the inside edge is done, do the same with the outside edge. 

Continue to go roughly in rows in between the edges you’ve created, overlapping the rows if necessary. Don’t worry if there’s gaps where you can see the styrofoam at this point. 

Once you’ve finished the big ornaments, use the small ornaments to cover any gaps or give it extra dimension.

The joy of using a hot glue gun is that it dries fast. Fifteen minutes after I finished it, it was hanging on my wall! 

This DIY ornament wreath makes a great little project that adds some holiday elegance to your Christmas decor! 

Looking for more holiday DIYs? Try Christmas card ornaments or holiday sugar scrubs!