Wooden Snowflake Ornaments

This, my friends, is a non-thrift store craft project, which I rarely ever do. But I have a very good reason for it. You see, I’ve partnered up with Upcycle Arts, the Creative Reuse organization here in Charlotte, NC. They happened to have a huge stockpile of donated clothespins and asked me to create a project with them. And with Christmas looming ahead, I decided to make some wooden snowflake ornaments with them.

Not familiar with Creative Reuse? Well, think of a craft store that is comprised solely of donated materials, some of which may be…unorthodox for crafting. And many of those materials are available in bulk, having been donated by a local manufacturer, brand, store, or similar. Perhaps it’s excess bottle caps from a brewery. Or a boatload of plastic buckets from a paint shop.

And in this case, a huge box of clothespins that came from an artisan who was changing her creative focus.

Anyway, I’ll be adding “Upcycle Arts Brand Ambassador” to my resume moving forward. And while that’ll mean a multitude of different things in the future, for now, it’s just creating an easy-to-replicate craft project with some of their donated materials: wooden clothespins.

This post contains affiliate links for your crafting convenience. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. All blue, bold, and underlined text is a clickable link, either to a product or to a related post. This post is also sponsored by Upcycle Arts. 

Crafting with Wooden Clothespins

So, as I mentioned, I was given dozens and dozens of wooden clothespins that had been donated to Upcycle Arts. And it was my job to come up with a creative reuse for them.

Since I planned on making a wooden snowflake ornament with them (or, more likely, SEVERAL ornaments), I needed to take them apart first.

First, I very carefully removed the spring from the clothespins by twisting them ever so gently. This allowed me to effectively slide one wooden half out from the spring. Which then allowed me to slide the spring off the other half.

Ultimately, I did this to eight individual clothespins. Which is the number I needed to make a wooden snowflake ornament.

Now that I had all the individual pieces that I needed, it was time to start forming them into large wooden snowflakes!

Building the Wooden Snowflake Ornaments

Next, I took two halves of a wooden clothespin and glued their long flat sides together. Basically like an inside-out clothespin with the spring removed.

I used super glue for this project instead of hot glue for a couple of very specific reasons. One, I didn’t want thick glue that create a space between the clothespin halves. And two, I didn’t want thick glue to be pushed out the sides, either.

I then continued to glue the snowflake “arms” together until I had eight of them.

After that, I selected four arms and glued them together in a cross shape (glued together at the angled sections of each arm). This is a delicate process that uses very little glue because of the tiny surface areas.

And yes, I did the same thing with the remaining four arms so that I had a pair of “X” shaped crosses.

Finally, I glued the two crosses together. I simply laid them on top of one another, differing by 45°!

Finishing the Wooden Snowflake Ornaments

Since I had SO MANY clothespins to craft with, I ended up making four clothespin snowflakes. But, as much as I loved how the wooden snowflake ornaments looked just as they were, I decided they needed a little more pizazz.

Paint and vintage rhinestone brooches.

First, I painted three of them; one in white, one in sliver, and one in blue. I left one as bare wood, as well.

As you can see, I used both spray paint and craft paint, depending on the colors I had in each version.

I then procured a few from my friend Lucy who owns the jewelry shop, Bel Monili. Specifically, I procured slightly damaged or flawed pins; ones with broken bits or discolored stones that she couldn’t use in her gorgeous jewelry.

After clipping off the actual pinbacks with wire cutters, I attached them to the centers of the wooden snowflake ornaments with super glue.

Lastly, I attached a small jewelry bail to the back of each ornament.

This way, I had a nice clean loop for an ornament hanger or thread/string.

And with that, my set of wooden snowflake ornaments was done and ready to be hung on the tree!

Wooden Snowflake Ornaments from Clothespins

Isn’t that a great way to upcycle excess clothespins? And if you aren’t in Charlotte but have a creative reuse center in your neck of the woods, they may also have lots of them available.

Or thrift stores are worth checking, too!

And so fun to embellish them with broken or flawed vintage jewelry, too! You could definitely use anything you have on hand- single earrings, flatter beads, or even sequins, as well.

And if you enjoyed this craft idea for wooden snowflake ornaments, then you may also be interested in this “wreath” that I made from a vintage clothespin bag, as well!

Craft on!

S

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