Easy Initial Ornaments for Preschoolers to Make

This cute initial ornament for toddlers and preschoolers is easy to make with cardboard, paint and some craft jewels. Your kids will be so proud to see their initial hanging on your Christmas tree.

Here’s another fun, fast and fabulous Christmas craft for toddlers and preschoolers! It’s an easy and adorable initial ornament made with stuff you have on hand. (For older kids, check out these painted initial ornaments and these yarn wrapped initial ornaments).

Homemade Initial Ornaments for Toddlers and Preschoolers

My boys received several initial ornaments when they were young.  I came across them when I was setting up the tree the other day, and I started reminiscing. Gosh, they used to get so excited about their initial ornaments. They were so proud of them, and would point them out to anyone and everyone throughout the Christmas Season.

One of the most important words in the world to a child is his or her name, so it makes sense that the most important letter in the world is the letter that their name begins with.

Hanging their initial ornaments on the tree, I realized that homemade initial ornaments would be pretty cool for the hooligans to make. . We’ve never made homemade initial ornaments here in my daycare.

So that’s what we’re doing today. Each of the hooligans is making and decorating their own homemade initial ornament to hang on their Christmas trees at home.

Like most of our craft projects, these ornaments are simple, inexpensive, and can be made with materials you likely already have in your craft supplies.

To make our initial ornaments, you’ll need:

• light to medium weight cardboard (save your cereal boxes and frozen pizza boxes for projects like this)
• Paint (we used regular acrylic and metallic acrylic colours)
• Craft jewels/sequins/buttons (or whatever you chose to decorate your letters with)
• ribbon or thread for hanging

Making your initial ornament:

First you need to trace your initial onto your cardboard.

If you can’t do this freehand, I would use About.com’s rubber stamping template.  And I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Instead of printing the letters off, I simply hold a piece of white paper up to my computer screen and trace the letter.

Once you have your letters, trace them onto your cardboard and cut them out.

Then let your kiddos paint ’em up!

While the hooligans were painting their letters, we kept the baby busy by giving her a piece of construction paper and a paintbrush and some water.

I love this activity for babies.  The water shows up instantly on the construction paper, so the baby can SEE her work, but there’s absolutely no mess.

Having said that, a few minutes later I thought “What the heck. Babies are never too young for art”. I gave her a letter of her own, and a paintbrush all loaded up with paint and she had a go at it.

The older hooligans chose their own colours for their letters.  We used regular acrylic craft paint for some of the letters, and metallic acrylics for others.

(The apron in the next photos is one of our repurposed denim aprons, made from the legs of our old jeans.  You can see the tutorial here)

I used a regular pink acrylic paint for my letter, and for fun, I added a thin coat of pink glitter glue to add some sparkle.

When your paint is dry, it’s time to decorate those letters!

Buttons, sequins and craft gems & jewels are just a few examples of what you can use to jazz ’em up.

I’m sure there are countless possibilities.  Just go through your craft supplies, or wander down the craft aisle at the dollar store and be creative!!  Tinsel, puffy paint, tissue paper, wool…

There are so many ways that you could decorate your initial ornaments!

And when you do, I’d LOVE to see your finished projects.  You’re always invited to link up your photos on my facebook page!

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of ours finished ornaments.  

Aren’t these initial ornaments adorable?

They’re so fun and easy for toddlers and preschoolers to make, and your kids will be so proud to see the first letter of their name hanging from your Christmas tree.

More Initial Ornaments for all ages:

Painted Cardboard Initial Ornaments

Yarn-Wrapped Initial Ornaments

Styrofoam Initial Ornaments for Toddlers to Make

Easy Initial Ornaments for Preschoolers to Make

You may also like:

Scented Sandpaper Gingerbread Men

Popsicle Stick Star

Twig Wrapped Ornaments