I was challenged to share my favourite holiday movie along with a craft or recipe inspired by it. I watch at least 2 Christmas movies a day from around the second week of November right through to New Year’s Day, so I had plenty of movies to choose from.
That being said, it is not a simple choice because there are easily at least 5 of them I could picked as “favorites”. But for this, challenge, I was drawn to a sweet little elf ornament in honour of the movie Elf, with Will Ferrell.

With the popularity of the Elf on the Shelf and the movie Elf, elf themed items have become very popular. When my daughter was little, we had the tradition of her guardian elf. This was kind of a cross between a Christmas elf and a guardian angel.
Each December 5th (St. Nicholas Eve), my daughter would leave out her letter to Santa Claus (with her Santa Sack of toys to donate to other children). Read more about Ernie the Guardian Elf and the Santa Sack here.

I came across a little elf ornament in among our Christmas decorations. My daughter made it back when she was in Girl Guides but it had broken in the box.
As I sat down to repair it, I decided to make another so I could share the full instructions here. It’s a simple project for older kids but little ones could certainly make one too as long as they had some help with the final assembly.
Now, on to the instructions for the Simple DIY Elf Ornament:

Materials needed:
Here are the small wood pieces you will need to make the ornament. You can sometimes find bags of assorted and pre-painted wood or coloured craft foam shapes at the craft or dollar store if you’d prefer to keep the kids away from the paints.
Otherwise, you will need paint and paint brushes as well as the wood shapes. For all materials, you’ll need a good craft glue (I like Aleene’s Tacky Glue), either a fine tipped marker (like a Sharpie) and/or googly eyes to create your elf’s face, and some string/yarn/ribbon to make a hanger for the ornament.

Step by Step Instructions for your Elf Ornament:
- Obviously, if you are painting your pieces, that is step one. Let them dry thoroughly.
- When assembling the ornament, I find it easiest to work on it in sections. See the photo above for placement of the pieces. Assemble the head section (ears, hat, face), the torso section (shirt and arms – all 3 pieces are green), hands holding the gift/card, each of the legs (2 red pieces and a green circle for the foot). Let those sections dry well.
- For the next steps, I like to glue the head section to the torso section and let that dry until secure enough to handle. Next, I attach the hands holding the gift/card to the torso. And finally, I attach the legs to the rest of the body.
- For an embellishment, I added a tiny pompom to his hat but this is optional. You could let the kids decorate with glitter, pompoms, buttons, ribbon, rickrack, and other such trims if desired. You can also add a message to the “card” or add ribbons and a bow to turn it into a gift box.
- Finally, add your hanger (cord, yarn, ribbon etc.) to the back of the elf’s head so you can hang your adorable elf on the tree!
Easy peasy! Customize them to suit the colours of your other decorations, personalize them with names on the hats – get creative and have fun!
Tania says
That WAS a great movie and your ornament is so cute!
Tania
Emily @DomesticDeadline.com says
So cute, my son is a huge fan of his elf on the shelf, I will have to check out that story.
Megan says
He certainly is a sweet little guy! Cute ornament!
Debrashoppeno5 says
Elf is a great movie. Your little elf is so cute. And it looks so easy to make.