Wood Slice Christmas Ornaments Made with a Wood Burning Tool

Making your own ornaments is a fun craft to do during the holidays and adds such a personal touch to your Christmas tree. These wood slice Christmas ornaments that I made using a wood-burning tool were so easy and the perfect addition to my “Woodland Rustic” tree.

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How to Make Wood Slice Christmas Ornaments with a Wood Burning Tool

1. Find or buy some wood slices

Wood slices, big and small, are quite popular right now, so you can find them in craft stores and even on Amazon. Or, you can just go outside and find a branch that is roughly the diameter that you want to use. Find a branch that is dead, because you want it to be dried out already. Plus, I don’t endorse mutilating a tree for the sake of this project. 🤣

I had these little wood slices left over from my wedding, where we used them for place cardholders. We literally chopped these branches off a tree in our backyard that didn’t make it through the winter. My husband did the slicing for me. ❤️

When you make your own wood slices, they will be more rustic, and because they will be hand-cut, and possibly from different branches, they will not be uniform in size.

That’s okay! In fact, I prefer it that way. It adds to the charm and handcrafted appeal.

Some of the slices may have knot holes or lumps in the bark. All of that is just extra character.

Our wood slices had these slots on one side from where the place card was inserted. No big deal, I just used the other side for burning my pattern.

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Where to buy ready-made wood slices:

If you need to press the easy button and don’t want to go looking for a branch or have to get out the power tools to cut it, just buy some wood slices.

Because wood slice crafts are popular right now, you can find them at any craft store, or even online.

A quick Amazon search produced some good options:

• 5ARTH Natural Wood Slices – 37 Pcs 2.0″-2.4″ Craft Unfinished Wood kit Predrilled with Hole 

• Prsildan Natural Wood Slices With Holes 2.4-2.8 Inches 30 Pcs DIY Wooden Craft Bead 30Pcs Wooden Ornaments Unfinished For Christmas Crafts

2. Make sure your wood slices have holes for the string

If you buy the ready-made wood slices, another bonus is that they may already have holes in them for hanging. The ones I linked above not only have pre-drilled holes, they also come with the twine included.

If you’re making your own, like I did, just use a power drill to make a hole near the top of each circle.

Then choose the type of string you want to use. You can go rustic, like twine, or fancy with some glittery ribbons. Even yarn will work. Choose what you like! I used this vintage-looking red-striped twine:

3. You will need a wood-burning tool

I purchased this specifically for this project, and I’m so glad I did. Since I wasn’t sure if I’d use it for anything other than this project, I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in it. When I saw this one for less than $12, I figured even if it was a dud, it wasn’t a big waste of money, so I gave it shot. As it turned out, it worked great, and I’m excited to find some other crafts to use it on now!

• Walnut Hollow Creative Wood burner Introduction Value Pen for Beginners and Intermediate Wood burners

4. Decide on what picture or pattern to create

As a beginner, you’re probably not going to be able to create super detailed images with the wood-burning tool, so start out basic.

The first one I created was this snowflake, because it only required straight lines, making it easier to burn.

First, I very lightly sketched an outline of the image I wanted on the wood circle. I just freehanded it after looking up pictures on my computer for ideas. I stuck with very simple designs.

My wood-burning tool came with three different tips, so I just experimented with all three, because they definitely give different looks.

One thing I learned is that you have to go slow, and really hold the pen to the wood for a little bit.

In fact, you can play around with getting darker and lighter tone variations based on how long you hold the pen to the wood and allow it to burn.

I absolutely love having these on my tree. They are one-of-a-kind creations that you can’t buy in any store.

And even more, they were the perfect way to prevent those place card holders from our wedding from being packed away in a box somewhere and instead, allow us to enjoy them year after year. ❤️

I can’t wait to find more uses for my inexpensive wood-burning tool. If you have some ideas, I’d love to hear them!

Wishing you the joy of the season,

If you’re looking for another fun and easy Christmas ornament project, check out some more of my Christmas DIY projects and crafts:

• DIY Scrap Wood Christmas Tree Crate
• DIY Scrap Wood Christmas Trees

• DIY Painted Ornament Upcyle
• Ribbobn Angel Ornaments

• Easy DIY Painted Flower Pot
• Silver Spoon Ornament

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Additional Resources:

I recently purchased these number and letter stamps for more crafting with my wood-burning tool! They’re so much fun. You can see how I used them HERE.

Walnut Hollow Hotstamps Uppercase Alphabet Branding and Personalization Set for Wood and Other Surfaces

Walnut Hollow Hotstamps Number and Symbol 24 Piece Set for Branding and Personalization on Wood and Leather

Shop My Favorite Vintage Christmas Items: