How to Make Large Outdoor Christmas Ornaments to Decorate Your Yard This Holiday Season

Decorating for Christmas is a blast. I’m big on making a statement in every room of my house.

But, hey, why stop with decorating the inside of your house when you can decorate the outdoors as well? I bring my Christmas style into my front yard.

Large Christmas Ornaments Bring Holiday Cheer to Your Outdoor Spaces

When it comes to outdoor Christmas decor, I like to get festive with lights, decorating trees, and other classic holiday touches. But, there’s one signature move that always draws a crowd: oversized Christmas ornaments reposing on my lawn or hanging from my front yard trees.

What’s fun about them is that they’re a traditional Christmas decoration…supersized and out of context (outdoors).

Their sheer size makes the neighbors stop and point.

Snow or No

These giant ornaments look fantastic in the snow. However, if you don’t have snow for Christmas, fear not. Even if you live in the subtropics, you can still get that Christmas spirit with them. They look beautiful on a grassy lawn or even hanging from a palm tree!

A Perfect Holiday DIY for the Family

Giant Christmas ornaments are pretty easy to make yourself. You’ll be able to use many articles or products from around the house, though you may need a shopping run for a couple items.

Kids, especially, love to get involved with turning bouncy balls into Christmas ornaments, so don’t forget to get the whole family involved.

Keep reading below to see one of my favorite DIY projects of the entire Christmas season.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own outdoor giant Christmas ornaments.

1. Plastic balls. You can often find these in those large containers at Walmart and other stores. You’ll want to pick a solid color. Red and green are your classic Christmas colors, obviously, but you can have fun with blue, yellow, gold, pink, purple, or any other color you can find.
2. Empty metal cans. These will be the ornament hanger; you can use tuna cans, or, for larger balls (larger ornaments!) you may want to opt for a slightly larger type of can.
3. Eye hooks, available at any hardware store, or at major home improvement stores like Lowes.
4. Metallic spray paint. You probably want several colors so that you can have different colors of large Christmas ornaments in your yard. Painting the balls is optional, depending on how creative you want to get. Painting the tuna cans is a must.
5. Ribbon for hanging each oversized ornament up. Alternatively, if you opt to not hang the ornaments, you can use tent stakes and ribbon to secure them to your lawn. In place of ribbon, you could use string or some other material, but ribbon is the most festive option.
6. Super glue to fasten a tuna can to each Christmas ball.

Step One: Clean the Tuna Can

Remove the label from your tuna can. Get all the label off.

Clean the inside of the can out well so that there aren’t food remnants left inside.

Nobody wants their outdoor Christmas ornaments smelling like tuna.

Step 2: Put the Eye Hook Into the Can and Paint Both

When you’re done cleaning, drill a hole into the bottom of the can and screw in an eye-hook. Spray-paint the can and hook a festive color. We recommend painting them gold, silver, metallic red, metallic blue, or bronze.

Step 3: Clean the Ball

Clean your plastic ball with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and vinegar to get rid of any residues that may have been leftover from the store. If you’re planning to paint stripes or other patterns on your ornaments, having a clean surface is especially important!

Step 4: Glue the Can to the Ball

Attach the tuna can to the top of the ball with a line of super glue right on the inside. Let the glue dry completely before hanging or displaying your beautiful new holiday decorations.

Optional: use tape and spray paint to add stripes and other patterns on your new Christmas ball ornaments. You can get as creative as you want here. You can even add glitter! Or, just hang them up in their original solid color (especially if you happened to buy a red ball)!

Step 5: Hang the Ornaments

After the glue has completely dried, display your large Christmas ornaments on your porch using a bit of ribbon through the eye hook.

Or, turn that front yard tree into a Christmas tree by hanging them from its branches!

Alternatively, you can display these large Christmas decorations on the ground. You’ll just have to make sure they are weighted down by something. You don’t want them to go blowing away!

Large Outdoor Christmas Ornaments, Complete

Whether you stake these giant ornaments down on your lawn, hang them by your front door, or feature them hanging from the maple tree on your park strip, they’re sure to make a statement this holiday season. You simply can’t beat them for magical holiday outdoor décor.

Advantages of Giant Christmas Ornaments

Each ball ornament is shatterproof, festive, and potentially unique (depending on how creative you get with your painting design and making it festive).

You can complement these oversized ornaments with holiday lights (including these giant DIY Christmas lights), oversized candy canes, giant lollipops, or other traditional holiday yard décor.

With these DIY ornaments, you have a lot of latitude to create your own holiday style!