Easy DIY Feather Ornaments (2 Ways!)

Do you love to decorate your tree with DIY Christmas ornaments? This project is so pretty, yet it’s easy enough for young kids to make! Keep things simple with colourful feathers—or, if you want more of a challenge, use metallic paint and glitter to create lovely white and gold feather ornaments that you’ll love to reuse year after year!

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I’ve always loved Christmas. The crafts, the baking, the family gatherings… pretty much everything about it!

I just love to sit in our living room snuggled up under a blanket with the ceiling light dimmed and the Christmas tree lights glowing. There’s something about it that feels magical. I’m definitely the sort of person who would keep the Christmas tree up all year long if I could!

Decorating the tree has always been something I’ve looked forward to. And now that I have kids, I’ve made it a point to create new Christmas decorations with them every December to give them something extra to look forward to!

Eventually, we’d like for our tree to be decorated with nothing but homemade ornaments. And while we don’t have enough for that yet, our tree still looks quite unique and we’ve been enjoying creating wonderful memories along the way!

We particularly love these feather ornaments, which happen to be beautiful, colourful, and extremely simple to make!

I’ve included two different variants below. The first takes literally two minutes to complete and is perfect for those with young kids, while the second involves a few extra steps that may be better suited for school-aged kids. But both are versions extremely easy to make, so depending on the age of your kids, feel free to choose the one you prefer—or even to make both!

Version 1: How to Make Colourful Feather Ornaments

Required Materials

Here’s what you’ll need to make these super simple feather ornaments suitable for young kids:

• Clear fillable plastic ornaments (if ever you can’t find the size you want online, they can also be found in craft stores and sometimes even at the dollar store)
• Colourful feathers

Note: If you don’t have young kids and aren’t worried about your ornaments shattering, feel free to use glass ornaments instead of plastic. But we’re about to welcome our fourth child under the age of five, so as you can imagine, we try to stay far away from anything breakable!

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Choose Feathers

Sort through your feathers and select a few that you think would go well together. Try to choose similar sizes and complementary colours. We chose yellow, orange and red for one ornament and blue, pink and yellow for the other.

For fun, I also made a third ornament using black and white feathers rather than brightly-coloured ones… but the result was a little underwhelming. Once it was placed on the tree, it blended in with the branches and was barely visible. For this reason, I recommend sticking with bright colours!

2. Place Feathers in Ornament

Open your clear fillable ornament and insert several feathers into it, with the shaft going in last. If your ornaments and feathers came in several sizes, be sure to match them appropriately. You can add as few or as many feathers as you like, so don’t be afraid to experiment with different looks!

3. Hang Ornament

Once all the feathers have been inserted, place the top back on your ornament and use your favourite method to hang it on your tree!

You’re free to use metal hooks if that’s what you prefer, but with young kids around, we prefer not to. Instead, a few years ago, we went out and bought the beautiful gold thread you can see below, and we now use it for all our ornaments to give them a consistent look!

And that’s it! As you can see, even younger kids can easily help with this project. But if your kids are a little older and you want to do something a little more challenging, give the white and gold variant a try!

Version 2: How to Make White & Gold Feather Ornaments

Required Materials

Here’s what you’ll need to make gorgeous white and gold feather ornaments for your Christmas tree:

• Clear fillable plastic ornaments (you can use glass if you prefer, but we avoid it because our kids are still quite young)
• White feathers
• Paintbrush
• Gold paint
• Fine gold glitter

You can use whatever gold paint you like, but I’m personally a huge fan of the Sargent Art “Liquid Metals” set you see below.

It’s inexpensive, includes multiple different shades, and gives a beautiful metallic sheen to any project. We’ve used it in so many gorgeous crafts, and it seriously makes me want to add a touch of gold to everything I make! You can purchase it by clicking the image below:

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Choose Feathers

Since you’ll be using nothing but white feathers for this project, this step is pretty simple. Just select a few feathers in similar sizes and for best results, try to make sure they’re nice and fluffy.

2. Paint Feathers

Lay your feathers flat on some parchment paper and cover part of them in gold paint as pictured below. I started by painting one side, then flipped them over to paint the other.

3. Add Glitter (Optional)

Sprinkle some gold glitter onto the tip of the feather. To help it stick, add the glitter while the paint is still wet; if it’s already dry, simply add a little bit more paint first.

If you’re not a fan of glitter, feel free to skip this step altogether. The sheen from the gold paint will make your ornament beautiful even without any glitter!

4. Let Dry

Let your feathers dry completely before moving on to the next step. This shouldn’t take very long, but we let them rest for several hours just to be sure.

5. Place Feathers in Ornament

Once the paint is fully dry, carefully insert the feathers into the ornament, with the shaft going in last.

6. Hang Ornament

Once all the feathers have been inserted, place the top back on your ornament and use your favourite method to hang it on your tree! As mentioned above, we like to use gold thread rather than metal hooks, but you’re free to carry on doing whatever it is you typically do!

Doesn’t it look gorgeous? Clear fillable ornaments offer so many different possibilities!

…And since I bought about 10 boxes of them when they were on liquidation last year, you can be sure that I’ll have many more of these projects to share with you! So be sure to check back regularly or subscribe to my newsletter to receive all the latest updates!

Related Homemade Christmas Decorations

Looking for more DIY Christmas decoration ideas? Check out these articles:

• Easy Alcohol Ink Ornaments
• DIY Santa’s Clothesline (with Free Template!)
• Easy Ribbed Glitter Ornaments
• Rustic Twine-Wrapped Ornaments

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