Water Bottle Christmas Ornament

This is a fun and decorative Christmas Tree ornament that you can make with kids or children. This project can take anywhere from 1-2 hours.

A small plastic water bottle, string, tape, glue, scissors, paper, a ruler

To remove the ring, all you need to do is pick at it with a fingernail and pull gently upwards.

To remove the label, peel it off, and under warm or hot water, rub off the excess paper and adhesive perpendicular to the direction you peeled it from. The paper should come off easily and “roll” off the bottle.

Using some tissue or toilet paper, dry the inside of the bottle by using a toothbrush or a similar skinny object to swab the inside.

After threading the water bottle ring through the string, or in my case, I used ribbon, tape the bottom of the string to the bottom of the water bottle so that you can get the ring as close as you can to the middle of the string.

Using a small amount of glue, stick the sides of the string or ribbon to the sides of the bottle. You can also pinch the string to the inner lip like so with your scissors. Lay the bottle on its side in order for the glue to dry without the string separating from the bottle.

In this example, I will show how to make a paper star that you can fill the bottle with. One strip of 1x20-23 cm paper makes one star.

You can make a simple knot by twisting the paper under and over your finger, and threading the strip through the hole. Then, press down on the knot to crease the paper and create a pentagonal shape.

Continue the direction of the knot, and loop the paper around the back of the knot to the side across from it.

Continue going around the sides of the knot until you have a small bit left.

Tuck the paper into the loops so that the small bit of paper can fit in between two strips.

Pinch the five sides of the paper in order to make the star. Once you’ve pinched the sides, the “knot” should no longer be flat and should now have a 3D shape.

You can get as creative as you like, and make as many decorations to put on your ornament. You can cut out shapes, paint the bottle, glue drawings or pictures on, or put other light objects into the bottle. You don’t have to just use paper stars, you could use yarn, cotton balls, tissue paper, or even small candies, to make “snow” or other festive decorations. These Christmas-colored paper stars are just one of many things you can put in your ornament.

This project can be a fun activity to do with small children, and get them engaged, or make memories you can keep. The paper stars may seem difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, they can take as little as 1-2 minutes to make. I took these origami paper stars from Chinese culture- traditionally, you can write messages on them and give 100 paper stars to a friend as a gift. In Japan, China, Korea, and other Asian countries, it is said that making 1000 paper cranes with messages written on the paper will make your wish come true!