9 Ways to Fill Clear Christmas Ornaments

Filling clear plastic ornaments is a super fun and easy craft to do with kids. We're excited to share our favorite ways to fill clear Christmas ornaments. We do this craft every year, and several of these ornaments have lasted years!

This craft really allows kids to be creative. Our kids also love seeing their clear ornaments displayed.

We like these clear plastic ornaments that open on the top. It's easier for the kids to handle, and it doesn't have a line that goes around.

9 Ways to Fill Clear Christmas Ornaments

Here are 9 simple ideas to fill clear Christmas ornaments. The kids came up with a few of these on their own. All these ways are easy enough for a toddler to do too!

• Pom Poms
• Ribbons
• Paint Swirls
• Colorful Straws
• Feathers
• Sequins
• Yarn
• Pipe Cleaners
• Rudolph

Colorful Pom Poms

Kids love using pom poms!

Sparkle Pom Poms are always a hit. Tie Dye Rainbow Pom Poms also really catch the kids' interest.

In this picture, we just used a bunch of assorted colors. My two kids love random bright colorful decorations. But, to keep a Christmas color theme, simply use red, green and white pom poms.

Ribbons

Do you ever have ribbon scraps? Or ribbon that you can't reuse for another gift? Filling clear plastic ornaments with used ribbon is a great way to reduce waste.

Curling ribbon works great because it holds it shape. Because of that, it fills up the entire ornament all the way to the top.

I tend to cut the ribbon into about 6-10 inch pieces. That way, it's not too tricky for the kids to fit the entire ribbon strand into the ornament.

Colorful Straws

We raided our pantry for these colorful straws! We had some leftover ones from takeout, I think. Because we only had a handful of straws, we only filled one clear plastic ornament.

It was super easy though! My toddler cut the straws herself, and filled the clear plastic ornament. Plastic straws were pretty easy to cut, but it would probably be easier with paper straws.

This pack of assorted paper straws look super fun. Some have gold foil, lots of color, and patterns printed on.

Feathers

It's easy to fill a clear plastic ornament with feathers! Make sure you use smaller fluffy feathers. These will go into the ornament opening easier.

We used about 4 feathers to fill each ornament. My toddler loved picking out the colors for each one. As you can see, she loves pink!

Sequins

For my little one, feather and sequins go hand in hand. The sequins look pretty in the ornaments when they are on the outside, against the clear plastic.

Any sequins will work for this craft. We just used what we had handy in our craft drawer.

While it looks pretty, it does take a lot of sequins to fill up an entire clear plastic ornament. We started to do that at first. But, it was taking too long for my little one. In the end, we decided to mix in the sequins with feathers. It worked out great this way!

Paint Swirls

Swirling paint around clear plastic ornaments make them super colorful! We used acrylic craft paint, the kind in little plastic bottles or pouches.

To do this, simply squeeze in a few drops of paint. Cover the hole with either your finger, or a wad of tissue. Next, shake, shake and shake the ornament all around. For some of the ornaments, we used two different colors of paint.

Once the paint covered the inside of our clear ornaments, we simply hung it on the tree to dry.

Be careful you don't use too much paint. You can see in the photo of our blue ornament, a bit of paint puddled on the bottom.

To prevent excess paint from puddling, you can also allow the ornament to rest upside down in a small cup lined with paper towel. If you take the time for this step, the paint will be able to drip out.

Yarn

Filling clear plastic ornaments with yarn is super easy for kids to do. We used this ombre yarn, which gave it fun colors.

We used various lengths of yarn. I let my kids cut the yarn themselves, which they enjoyed. I found that shorter lengths were the easier to get fully into the ornament though.

Pipe Cleaners

Using pipe cleaners to fill the clear ornaments was my kids' idea. They loved doing it because they could bend the pipe cleaner into various shapes and swirls.

I had to help them cut the pipe cleaners shorter. But other than that, it was easy enough for them to do all by themselves.

We also added in some sequins to give it sparkle. But we'll probably use these pretty glitter pipe cleaners next time!

Rudolph

The last ornament we made was Rudolph! It's easy to make Rudolph using a clear plastic ornament.

First, stuff the inside with cut up strips of brown paper bag. The kids used crinkle scissors, which is always fun.

Next, hot glue on squiggly eyes and a red pom pom for a nose. We also glued a pom pom tail, but you can't see it in the picture.

Last, simply fold up pipe cleaners so it looks like antlers. Wrap or glue the antlers to the top of the ornament.

Other Ideas and Ways to Fill Clear Christmas Ornaments

Do you have other ideas and ways to fill clear Christmas ornaments? I'd love to hear about them below!