Honeycomb Christmas Ornaments

Learn how to make your own DIY honeycomb Christmas ornaments! You can save money and coordinate them with the colors of your Christmas tree. It’s a win-win situation!

How is your Christmas decorating coming along? Do you still need more ideas for your Christmas tree? I have got the perfect craft for you today! These adorable homemade honeycomb Christmas ornaments will add the finishing touch to your Christmas tree this year.

It seems like I have seen these paper honeycomb ornaments all over recently. You may have also seen them referred to as accordion Christmas ornaments. Whatever you call them, I knew I wanted to try to make my own! I have to say that I am really happy with how they turned out! Mr. Wonderful was also really impressed with them. Although, I am not sure he knew exactly what I was talking about when I was explaining what I was going to make. LOL

There was a little bit of a learning curve when making these. However, I have figured out the best way to make these honeycomb paper ornaments and that will make it easier for you! I made mine with cardstock that matched the colors of one of my Christmas trees. You can make these in any color you want though. That is the beauty of making them yourself! Oh, and it is easier on the pocketbook. 😉

I hand drew my ornaments but as usual, with the help of Mr. Wonderful and his mad photoshop skills, I am giving you the template that you can print off and cut out. 🙂 I like to share crafts that everyone can reproduce, not only those who have cutting machines like Cricuts and Silhouettes. However, if you happen to own one of those machines, you can take the template PDF file and convert it to a SVG file to use. A cutting machine would save a lot of time!

Supplies to make honeycomb Christmas ornaments

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

• Card stock of any color of your choice – I used this Paper Studio earthtone pack from Hobby Lobby (although the colors look slightly different online)
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Scissors
• Paper Scorer – similar to mine or this
• Gold cord/ribbon
• Wood beads – I had some beads on hand in different shades
• Honeycomb ornament templates (get below)

WATCH THE QUICK VIDEO

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to make these DIY honeycomb Christmas ornaments. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want more detailed instructions, continue reading.

Tips for making honeycomb paper ornaments

Before we start with the tutorial, I wanted to point out a couple different tips and options you have when making these DIY paper ornaments.

• I used card stock for mine because I wanted a sturdier ornament that will hold up for longer. I plan to reuse mine in later years. You could use any kind of paper to make these: patterned scrapbook paper, construction paper or even brown paper bags. The heavier the paper, the more sturdy it will be, but also a bit more challenging to cut and open after glued. 
• I used hot glue for this project as again, I felt like that would provide a more solid ornament. You could use other glue like gorilla glue, E6000, or even Elmer’s school glue. I felt like the hot glue would hold the best and gives immediate bonding without holding it for a long time. You will have hot glue strings but those can be removed afterwards.
• When you are opening the ornaments for the first time, especially with the finial ornament, work it open slowly or you risk ripping the ornament. Open it a little bit, then close it and repeat going more each time. I speak from experience! 🙂 If you do rip it, I would suggest using regular glue to repair it or you will have hot glue all over the ornament. Again, experience talking. Ha!

Print out the honeycomb ornament templates

I made three different honeycomb Christmas ornaments: a finial shaped one, a round one and a squatty tear drop shaped ornament. They all use the same process to make but the tutorial below and the video show all three ornaments separately. The instructions are most complete for the first finial ornament and a bit truncated for the others, but some of the instructions may sound redundant.

• Finial honeycomb ornament
• Round honeycomb ornament
• Tear drop honeycomb ornament

The first step is to print out the ornament templates onto a piece of card stock or paper. When you are printing, make sure you print this template at 100% to make sure the size is correct. Every printer is different so just make sure your settings are not set to ‘fit to page‘ or that the box is not checked letting your printer make changes.

How to make a finial honeycomb ornament

Print out the finial honeycomb ornament template on card stock or paper in the color of your choice. For this finial ornament, I printed 5 sheets of card stock to give me 25 finials. The finished size of the finial ornament is just a bit under 5½” x 3½“.

Next, you will want to cut out all the finial shapes. This does take a little while so it is great to do while watching a mindless TV show! I found it easier to cut the whole piece of card stock into smaller pieces around each finial. Cut along the lines, if you are using a lighter colored cardstock, it is best to cut right inside the line so it doesn’t show in your finished product. Do not cut the center line, that will be used for scoring the ornament to fold in half.

I used a paper trimmer/scorer to score the center lines. Make sure to switch the blade to the scoring one! When scoring the finial, start at the top and pull down on the scorer. This way you don’t smash the point at the bottom of the ornament. After scoring the center line on all the ornaments, fold them in half.

Glue the paper honeycomb ornament together

To glue the ornament, open the folded ornament back open and add one dot at the top of the ornament on one half. Also glue a perpendicular line to the center line right underneath the second curve as shown in the picture below. Try not to glue all the way to the edge of the ornament or the hot glue will seep out and you will see it. The thinner the hot glue line, the better! Fold the finial in half and hold for a few seconds to allow the glue to set.

Repeat this step with all the finial shapes. As you are working your way through the pile, occasionally pick up the stack to compress the folds down. You want to make them as flat as possible.

Next, take a half finial shape and add a perpendicular line in the center of the second curve and a line of glue along the bottom curve. Again try to stay away from the edge a little bit. Press and hold the glue for a few seconds. Continue gluing the half finial shapes on top of each other. Try to make sure they line up with each other when you are gluing them. 

This ornament is the most intricate and has the most glue points so it is the hardest to open. Start to work it open as you go along. Then at the end, open it slowly in increments. Work it open as far as you can without stressing it too much, then close it. Repeat this step multiple times and you will be able to open it further each time you do it until you can finally open it completely.

Add some gold cord and wood beads to your honeycomb ornament

Cut a length of the gold cord that fits along the whole ornament plus another 3-4 inches. Adding a wood bead is optional, but I think it looks nice and helps to cover the big opening on the top and bottom of the ornament. Since I used card stock, the stack got pretty thick. The thicker the stack, the bigger the openings. 🙂

To add the wood bead, I threaded the looped end through the bead and straddled the loop with the two long strands of cord. Then I tied a knot with the long strands to secure the bead. Next, I ran a length of hot glue along the center of the stacked half finials and added the gold cord with the bead at the bottom of the ornament. Glue the ornament closed by following the same glue pattern as with all the half finials. Hold the ornament closed for a few seconds while the glue bonds. Secure the bottom bead with more hot glue.

After the ornament is closed, add a wood bead to the cords at the top and glue on. Tie a knot at the top of the gold cord, so you can hang the honeycomb ornament.

Lastly, remove any visible hot glue strings. Realistically, they are not even that visible in real like. The camera always picks them up more easily. 

How to make a round honeycomb ornament

Print out the round honeycomb ornament template on card stock or paper in the color of your choice. For this round ornament, I printed 4 sheets of card stock to give me 24 circles. The finished size of the round ornament is 3½” in diameter.

Cut out the all the circles. In hindsight, I should have cut inside the black line a bit more on this cream colored card stock so you don’t see that on the finished ornament. Do not cut the center line, that will be used for scoring the ornament to fold in half.

Score down the center line and fold the circles in half.

Glue the round paper honeycomb ornament together

To glue the round ornament, open the folded ornament back open and add a line of hot glue in the middle on one half of the circle perpendicular to the center line. Try not to glue all the way to the edge of the ornament or the hot glue will seep out and you will see it. The thinner the hot glue line, the better! Fold the circle in half and hold for a few seconds to allow the glue to set.

Continue this step until all the circles are glued.

Next, take a half circle and add two perpendicular lines towards the top and bottom as shown below. Continue adding half circles on top of each other.

Once you have all the half circle shapes glued together, add the gold cord and wood beads and finish the ornament the same way as the finial ornament above.

How to make a tear drop honeycomb ornament

Print out the tear drop honeycomb ornament template on card stock or paper in the color of your choice. For this squatty tear drop ornament, I printed 4 sheets of card stock to give me 20 tear drop shapes. The finished size of the tear drop ornament is just a bit under 4″ x 4″. Cut out the tear drop shapes.

Since these tear drops end in points on both sides, I started in the center of the ornament to score it. Score it halfway pulling up, then score the other half starting in the middle again and pulling down. Fold the tear drops in half.

Glue the tear drop paper honeycomb ornament together

To glue the tear drop ornament, open the folded ornament back open and add a line of hot glue in the middle on one half of the tear drop perpendicular to the center line. Try not to glue all the way to the edge of the ornament or the hot glue will seep out and you will see it. The thinner the hot glue line, the better! Fold the tear drop in half and hold for a few seconds to allow the glue to set.

Next, take a half tear drop shape and add two perpendicular lines towards the top and bottom as shown below. Take notice that the tear drop shape is not symmetrical on the top and bottom so make sure to line it up correctly and not upside down. I suggest lining them all up before you start gluing to avoid this! Continue gluing half tear drop shapes on top of each other.

I opted to not use wood beads on these ornaments. Instead I added a thin gold ribbon. Once you have all the half tear drop shapes glued together, glue down one end of the ribbon then the other to the stack of tear drop shapes in the same way as the gold cord was added above. This will create a loop above the ornament to hang it from. Glue two lines like the picture above on the top most tear drop shape and close the ornament.

Hang your honeycomb Christmas ornaments on your tree

I love the ways these honeycomb Christmas ornaments look on the Christmas tree! They add so much texture to your tree. They also look great just placed in a bowl for Christmas decor.

I will be back later this week to share one more fun Christmas craft with you before I share my Christmas decor! Have a great day!