15 Wood Christmas Crafts You Don’t Have to be a Woodworker to Make • Crafting a Green World

Showing off a wood Christmas craft will make you look like an expert woodworker. You don’t have to tell anyone that you’re not!

I don’t care what New Yankee Workshop told you–wood crafts don’t have to be that hard! Below, find plenty of wood Christmas crafts that require little to no actual woodworking experience.

Balsa wood is so easy to work with because instead of a saw, you can cut it with a craft knife! This tutorial shows you how to cut and assemble some really cute animal; to make them into ornaments; just poke a hole in the top and add twine.

The day that you realize that you can start crafting with your kid’s old building blocks is sad–how did they grow up so quickly?–but also, yay for new craft supplies! This tutorial uses only cubes, but I think all the shapes make interesting ornaments.

It’s a niche craft supply, but my younger kid went through a phase of being obsessed with painting little wooden clothespin people and making them clothes from fabric scraps, so I actually have a stash of these!

I use the snot out of my clothespins, but when the metal spring breaks, they’re fair game for crafting! These clothespin stars make an easy wood Christmas ornament that doesn’t require anything but glue.

This tutorial, as written, is the most complicated project on this list, being as it requires actual (gasp!) woodworking. But if you’re interested in learning how to use a scroll saw, this isn’t the worst project to start with! And if you want to make it with zero woodworking skills, source one length of wood for the base, and 25 wood cubes whose sides are the same length.

Wood balls can be a little hard to come by, but I’ve occasionally happened upon them in thrift stores or antique malls, always underpriced because nobody but us realizes how cool they are! Unlike the tree slice ornaments that you’ll see below, don’t bother trying to wood burn these, as they won’t burn evenly. Instead, paint them!

Want a wood ornament that requires absolutely ZERO woodworking skills? This star is it! Use your excellent knot-tying skills instead… or cheat with a little PVA glue underneath the knots, ahem.

You could cut most of these twigs with hand clippers, so the only “woodworking” tool required is a drill. Even a hand drill would work perfectly here!

It can be fun to change out some of your wall art for seasonal designs. This tutorial utilizes water-slide paper (think temporary tattoos!) to simplify the process of putting festive images onto wood panels.

Beads are the perfect shortcut for making wood Christmas crafts! Here, beads strung with wire make a sweet and simple wreath. Paint it to make something more embellished and elaborate.

Use a wood burner and last year’s Christmas tree–or a handy fallen branch in your yard–to make these beautiful and simple ornaments. The only woodworking tools you’ll need are a saw–a handsaw is fine!–and sandpaper.

This project is a beginner-friendly scroll saw one, with just a few curved and straight cuts. If your cuts don’t look perfect to your eyes, just sand them into submission!

A couple of straight lines are the only cuts you need to make on a rectangle of scrap wood to make a minimalist gingerbread house front. After that, it’s all white paint pen!

You need a saw to slice up the tree branches, but after that you can assemble the whole thing with wood glue. It would be so cute to make a teeny version of this for a dollhouse!

It’s surprisingly easy to design and make a wood star completely from scratch. Make it small for an ornament, or large for a tree topper; make it from clean new wood and paint it, or from upcycled barn wood and leave it bare to show off its age.

P.S. Do you have a favorite wood Christmas craft that I didn’t write about? Tell us about it in the Comments!