Let's make New Year’s decorations by hand! A collection of ideas you can create with everyday materials.
As the New Year approaches, are you thinking about brightening up your space with handmade New Year’s decorations? Store-bought pieces are lovely, but decorations you craft yourself carry a special warmth and sense of attachment.
In this article, we’ll share easy, DIY New Year’s decoration ideas you can try using familiar materials.
From yarn and felt to origami paper, you can create a wide variety of projects with items that are easy to find.
Try making them with your children, or finish them with your own favorite designs for decorations full of originality.
How about preparing for the New Year with heartfelt, handmade items?
- Handmade New Year’s wreaths: A collection of festive ideas using shimenawa and mizuhiki
- Let's make our own shimenawa! A collection of stylish ideas you can create with paper and artificial flowers
- Welcome the New Year! Ideas for Handmade Kadomatsu
- For New Year’s! A collection of fun origami ideas to make, decorate, and play with in childcare
- A collection of handmade ema ideas: easy crafts perfect for New Year’s
- Handmade winter garlands: cute ideas that are easy to make
- Handmade spinning tops with everyday materials! Easy ideas you can enjoy for New Year’s too
- [Handmade Winter Decorations] A collection of stylish, heartwarming creations you can make with everyday materials
- Christmas crafts for adults: stylish project ideas you'll want to display
- Let's make a handmade hagoita! Fun ideas using milk cartons and cardboard
- A roundup of handmade Daruma ideas: making Daruma with various materials
- Simple yet amazing! Handmade New Year’s card ideas that will delight
- [Easy] Practical craft ideas. Great for beginners too!
Let's make New Year's decorations by hand! A collection of ideas using familiar materials (31–40)
New Year decorations made with origami and mizuhiki
Let’s celebrate the New Year by making a festive decoration! This idea breaks the project into fan, leaf, and flower parts, and then combines them with mizuhiki cord to finish it as a single ornament.
The fan and leaves are both made with accordion folds.
For the fan, use a rectangular piece of colored construction paper; once you’ve made the accordion, tape the center to create an hourglass shape.
For the leaves, accordion-fold a triangular piece of origami paper, fold it in half, then glue the bottom edges together to form the leaf shape.
Next is the flower, which is made by folding origami paper.
Since it’s assembled from five identical parts, the folding steps are simple.
Once all the parts are ready, arrange them using the fan as the base and complete your beautiful decoration.
Good luck! Hanging fan ornaments
Prepare two sheets each of plain origami paper measuring 7.5 cm × 15 cm, patterned washi origami paper measuring 3 cm × 15 cm, and gold origami paper measuring 0.5 cm × 15 cm.
First, leaving a 0.5 cm margin at the top of the plain origami, attach the gold origami.
Next, attach the patterned washi origami directly below it.
Once you have made two sets of these three-layered pieces, accordion-fold both.
Then align and glue the peaks at the ends together to form one piece, pinch the bottom and secure it with a stapler, and spread out the remaining top to shape it into a fan.
Finally, glue a string to the back of the fan, and your hanging decoration is complete.
Plum blossom you can make with a single sheet
Let’s make plum blossoms that are perfect for the New Year.
Make sure to fold the creases firmly.
When creating the petals, the key is to cut a slit about halfway with scissors.
To round off the petal corners and form the shape of a plum blossom, tuck in the pointy edges.
Finally, color the center with a Posca marker to finish.
Try making plum blossoms in a variety of colors like white, red, and pink.
You’ll feel the seasonal atmosphere, and it will also serve as good fine-motor exercise for your fingers.
Easy and cute Daruma origami
As we welcome the New Year, let’s make the perfect daruma for setting our goals.
First, crease the origami paper in half vertically and horizontally.
Fold along the creases to shape the outline of the daruma.
Since it’s a daruma, the key is to round the corners for a softer, curved shape.
For the body, decide the width while adjusting the overall balance.
Once you draw the daruma’s facial features—eyes, mustache, and eyebrows—it’s complete.
If you use different colors of origami paper, you can create various types of daruma; lining them up might look festive and be a lot of fun.
Cute horse origami
Let’s make an origami horse for the New Year zodiac.
Prepare two sheets of origami paper and create the head and body separately.
For the head, fold into a triangle twice, then shape the horse’s face along the crease lines.
The key point is to fold the ear tips straight so they become nicely pointed.
For the body, after making the crease lines, inflate the paper slightly and fold along the creases, gently opening it as you go.
Once you form the tips of the legs, fold the piece in half to finish.
Glue the head and body together, and your horse is complete.
Give it a try!