Simple Mock Starfish Clothespin Ornament

Do your kids love arts and crafts as much as mine do? Ornaments are the perfect craft to do with your kiddos over the holidays. Why? Because they’re typical easy, fun to make, you can give them as gifts, and more ornaments means more festivity!

But one of the best things, the very best things, is looking back at the ornaments you made in the years past and remembering those times spent with your family. Each holiday season as you unpack your decorations, you’ll also be unpacking the memories and reminiscing about years past. The year you tried salt dough ornaments and your daughter hated pressing her hand into the dough. The year you did thumbprint reindeer and got paint everywhere. You’re not just making ornaments, you’re making memories.

Memories that you will be able to hang on your tree or in your house and admire for years to come.

(Pro tip: Make sure you write the year and the name of who made it on the back of each ornament.)

My favorite ornaments to make with kids are are ones where the kids can perform most of the steps on their own with minimal help from me. In the case of this fun mock starfish ornament I have for you, an adult needs to take the metal pieces off the clothespins and man the hot glue gun and that’s about it! The rest of the steps are very kid-friendly.

Simple Mock Starfish Clothespin Ornament

Materials:

• Clothespins
• Ribbon
• White paint
• Paint brush
• White school glue
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Decorative flowers

Instructions:

Begin by taking the clothes pins apart. You can do this by slipping the metal pieces carefully off of each clothespin. You’ll need 6 clothespins for each ornament.

Flip the pieces of each clothespin over so that the smooth sides are facing each other. Glue the flat sides of each clothespin together with the hot glue gun. Allow the glue to dry before moving to the next step.

Paint the glued together clothespins with the white paint. You can use any type of paint that you like but I really like using chalk paint because it dried very quickly and I like the look.

Once the paint has dried, begin to glue them together end to end in a circle with the hot glue gun.

Once the clothespins have been glued together and the glue has set, coat the front of each ornament with a layer of white school glue. Pour glitter onto the glue and shake the excess off. If you shake the excess of onto a clean sheet of paper, you can can easily dump it back into the glitter container to be used for another project.

Let the glue and glitter dry completely and then hot glue a flower or other decorative object into the middle of your clothespin ornament.

Finally use your hot glue gun to attach a loop of ribbon to the back of your mock starfish ornament to serve as a hanger.

Tip: If you’re making this craft with a toddler, I recommend you make the star and let your child decorate with glitter and sequins.