21 DIY Styrofoam Ball Christmas Ornaments

Styrofoam balls make a great base for Christmas ornaments. Styrofoam is so forgiving and easy to work with that you’re virtually assured crafting success. Mishaps are easy to undo. These 21 tutorials for styrofoam ball Christmas ornaments are all quick and easy to make. Many of them are even suitable for kids.

Do you have a knitter or crocheter in your family? These Yarn Ball Ornaments from FaveCrafts make great hostess gifts. I’ve made a couple of these myself. My only modification was using an 8″ length of dowel rod instead of 6″. (That’s because I used a 3″ styrofoam ball instead of 2-1/2″.) Later I realized that I could just use wooden skewers instead of cutting up dowels.

I love the look of these ornaments wrapped with striped yarn. Heather from At Home With H revamped old glass ornaments, but I’ve seen similar tutorials that use styrofoam balls as the base, like this one…

These Christmas ornaments from My Sparkle are covered with thick yarn. Not only would they look nice hanging from the bough of a Christmas tree, they’d look nice in a bowl on your kitchen table. You could pick yarns to color coordinate with your decor and use them all year round.

Shar from Scrapendipity Studio dipped into her button box to make this pretty ornament. You don’t even have to mess around with glue because pins hold everything in place on the styrofoam.

This ornament is similarly made, but instead of random buttons, Sharon from Crafts ‘n Coffee covered the ball with white buttons peppered with occasional red ones. Sharon’s video tutorial actually has 5 different ornaments that can be made in 5 minutes.

Allison from The 3 Rs Blog tells how she made these sparkly ornaments using colorful sequins. The individual sequins can be applied randomly or in a pattern.

Instead of individual sequins, Miss Kris used sequin trim. This process is much less time-consuming because the sequins come on a long strand that can be glued to the ball quickly.

Ellie from Less Cake More Frosting also decorated her ornament with trim, but instead of sequins she used a strand of beads. I can hardly wait to go to the craft store to see what trim I can find to cover a styrofoam ball!

This thumb tack ornament made by Jessica from Factory Direct Craft has the most amazing texture. I didn’t realize that thumb tacks come in all different colors until I saw this tutorial. This is the type of crafting that can be done while binging on Netflix!

Do you like to decoupage? That’s how this Christmas ornament from Fave Crafts was made. You could use sheet music for a musician in your family or pages from an old book for your favorite reader.

If you prefer natural decor, how about making one of these mini pinecone kissing ball ornaments featured on Uncommon Designs? Get your glue gun fired up!

Here’s another natural ornament. Michelle from Sweet Something Designs shows you how to cover a styrofoam ball with acorn caps.

This twine rapped ornament would look great on a country-themed Christmas tree. Kristin from Cry Baby Ink recommends wrapping the twine tightly and gluing often.

I’m a fabri-holic, so of course I’m in love with this cool fabric ornament from Jody at Everyday Beautiful. Just think of all the pretty fabrics you could use!

Fabric Therapy is one of my favorite quilting blogs. Teresa recently got addicted to making yo-yos and made this pretty ornament for an ornament exchange.

Ashley from Bigger Than The Three Of Us made this simple fabric ornament using fabric scraps. Wouldn’t a bowl of these look great in a craft room?

This adorable needle felted snowman ornament from Crafts ‘n Coffee is easy to make, but you have to have the right supplies. If you have wool roving and a felting tool, you’re all set. I do, so I did;-)

Alex from Northstory made pom pom ornaments with her kids. She started out attaching the pom poms with pins, but switched to a glue gun when that took too long.

Crafts by Amanda made this jumbo vintage snowman ornament by first covering the styrofoam ball with snow texture paint. I especially like the clever way she made the nose.

Here’s a great project for kids from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational. I made one myself last week and it took me longer to heat up the glue gun than to put the snowman together. The only modification I made was the carrot nose. Instead of felt, I coiled a length of orange pipe cleaner into a carrot shape.

The kids would also enjoy making this reindeer Christmas ornament from B-Inspired Mama. Instead of using glue, all the parts were pinned in place. That makes it easy to reposition them if the placement isn’t quite right. Styrofoam is so forgiving.

As Georgiana from Craftulate mentioned in her reindeer ornament post above, styrofoam balls come in two types. The ones with a soft, rough surface are particularly good for “snow” ornaments because they sparkle. The harder, smoother styrofoam balls are easier to paint. Both are easy to glue and/or stick pins into. I was surprised at how much the price of styrofoam balls went up since the last time I bought them. Luckily I found a good deal after Christmas last year when ornaments were marked down 90% at a major big box store. I bought a hundred 3″ balls for a nickel apiece! That’s enough for my whole quilt guild with a few left over for me to play with. Here are the styrofoam ball ornaments I made last week from three of the tutorials listed above. I hope you try a couple of them, too.