Handmade Winter Hat Ornament

close up of a green and a white tiny winter toque made out of yarn.

This handmade winter hat ornament is the sweetest little homemade decoration to hang on your Christmas tree 🙂 If you have a ball of yarn, a toilet paper roll, and a pair of scissors, you can create this cozy little winter toque in under an hour (yes, I’m Canadian, so it’s called a Toque 😉 ). Also, it is a great activity for kids! My eight year old son has been making hat after hat for all of his family and teacher gifts this year. And honestly, who wouldn’t love a bunch of these gracing their tree?!

This handmade winter toque ornament is quite straight-forward to make. I will suggest that for kids under 7 years old, you may need to provide some assistance with the cutting and the tying of the yarn, but even my five year old loves making these with my help!

What you’ll need:

In order to make an adorable handmade winter hat ornament, you will need:

Balls of green and white yarn sit on a table with some scissors and a cardboard toilet paper roll.

Yarn: you will see that the thickness of yarn you choose will determine how many pieces you need to cut to fit around the toilet paper roll…

Toilet Paper Roll: Pretty straightforward 🙂

Scissors: Scissors that will cut yarn fairly easily are good. We have some kiddie scissors in our house that happen to be sharp enough, but you may need to use ‘grown-up’ scissors for this job. I’ve linked some great sewing scissors below.

How to make your Handmade Winter Hat Ornament

Step 1: Poke a hole in your paper towel roll approximately 1/2 inch from one end. Trying not to bend the roll, cut around in a circle to create a ring. Place the remaining roll to the side to create more ornaments later!

Round slices of a toilet paper roll on a cutting board beside a pair of scissors.

Step 2: Begin cutting strips of yarn. Make each strip approx. 12 inches long. Use your first piece as a guide to cut all your pieces about the same length. This step does not have to be precise, as you will be trimming the strips of yarn later 🙂 We used about 75 pieces of standard-thickness yarn for one ornament.

An example of a piece of yarn folded in half.

**Note: My son found it helpful to lay the yarn out on the carpet and just crawl along, snipping as he went. A little less fiddly that way for a child to do it.

A young boy looks up at the camera, while demonstrating how to cut a long string of yarn in to smaller pieces.

Step 3: Fold one strand of yarn in half. Place the folded ‘loop’ through the toilet paper ring. Bring the 2 ends over the ring, and pull through the loop. Adjust so the ‘knot’ is at one end of the ring, not in the middle of the cardboard. Repeat with remaining strands, always putting the folded yarn ‘loop’ through the ring in the same direction to ensure the strings are all on the same side!

A folded piece of green yarn resting partially inside a centimeter wide slice of toilet paper roll.

A piece of yarn is inside a slice of toilet paper roll, and then folded over itself.

An example of how the yarn for the toque is tied onto the toilet paper roll.

Multiple strands of green yarn are tied onto a round of toilet paper roll.

Continue adding strips of yarn until the ring is well-covered in yarn. The more you use, the sturdier and fluffier your hat will be!

A boy demonstrates how to attach multiple strands of yarn to the roll to make the ornament

A white toque and green toque lie on the table. They are almost complete, but the strands of yarn are loose and need to be tied in to the shape of the toque.

Step 4: This is a bit tricky at first: Twist and tuck all of the strands of yarn back up through the toilet paper ring, up through the middle. This will give the toque it’s signature folded cuff around the bottom!

Two hands twist the yarn on the ornament.

Hands demonstrating how to pull all the strands of yarn into the ornament.

Step 5: Straighten out the yarn by running your fingers through it. Then take another piece of yarn and lay it flat. Place your toque on top, approximately 1.5 to 2 inches from the cuff of the hat. Tie the yarn tightly around the bundle of strings to create the toque shape. Then tie yarn again to create a loop to hang your ornament from the tree!

Child's finger holding down a knot to tie on the ornament.

Step 6: Using scissors, trim your long strands to create a pom pom top. By trimming a bit longer on top and shorter around the sides, you will create a rounded pom pom effect.

Scissors trim the excess yarn away from the end of the hat ornament.

Step 7: To help maintain the shape of your ornament, tuck a ball of tissue paper or tissue inside the hat 🙂

A green and a white completed hat ornament lie in snow.

Handmade ornaments make a tree so special!

These little winter hat ornaments are so darn cute on the Christmas tree! My son has made them in an array of Christmas colours, but my favourite is the white, sparkly one. It shimmers under the lights of the tree, and adds warmth and coziness.

Three winter hat ornamnets close up on a evergreen tree.

Imagine a tree decked out in pretty little white handmade winter hat ornaments, pine cones, and ribbon garland? Or how about many multicoloured toques mixed in with coloured lights and bright, cheery garland?!

However you decorate, I hope you get a chance to try these out! It has become a wonderful hands-on activity for my kids. I hope your kids find the same joy and excitement creating their own decorations for the holidays 🙂

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Red, green, and multi-coloured yarn

White sparkle yarn

Sewing scissors

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What ornaments do you love to put on your tree? Do you make your own? Buy them all? Or a mix of both? Let me know in the comments below!

Check out my other holiday posts!

Chocolate Cherry Shortbread Cookies

Chewy Gingersnap Cookies

Grandma’s Best Hot Chocolate

And there’s more!

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