Making Memory Ornaments with Clothing

Keep past Christmases with you always with beautiful keepsake memory ornaments. We want to teach you how to make these lovely keepsake ornaments using old clothing, which will keep the precious memories long lasting.

Repurposed Shirt Memory Ornaments – A Great Keepsake Ornament

If you are looking to create keepsake ornaments, this is a wonderful place to start. Many of us have clothes from loved ones that we cannot part with, whatever the reason may be. This is a great way to honor someone or preserve someone’s memory while upcycling in a special and thoughtful way.

I found that this makes a great gift too. If you purchase the materials in bulk, you can take one shirt and make multiple memory ornaments, and gift them out to multiple family members or multiple loved ones.

The wonderful thing about this is you can make them any time of year and gift them. We know that there are a lot of us that will look for memorable ornaments year-round, and there is nothing more memorable than a homemade ornament that is also a keepsake.

Join our crafting community to find more nature-inspired DIYs and upcycled craft ideas. It feels good to repurpose, upcycle and create with nature!

Materials Needed for these Memory Ornaments:

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• Woven button-up shirt

• Large canning jar lid and screw band

• Fabric scissors

• Hot glue gun

• Twine

• Winter-themed pendant charm (optional)

• Decorative greenery (optional)

How to make keepsake ornaments with this repurposed shirt:

We’re happy to provide the step-by-step video here and photo instructions below to make this beautiful memory ornament to treasure for a lifetime. Let us know in the comments if you have questions about any step!

Place and center the lid over the top of the placket on the button-up shirt. Trace the lid with a pen, chalk, or wax.

Cut out the circle and glue the overlapping placket together with the hot glue gun.

Place and glue the circle onto the lid and put it aside for time being.

Use the screw band to trace another circle out of the shirt. Cut the circle out larger than the size of the screw band to have enough fabric to overlap the edges.

Place the covered lid into the screw band and glue it in place.

Use the other circle cut out to cover the back side of the ornament. Fold the edges over the band and glue them in place. Trim the excess if it extends past the top of the screw band.

Cut three long strands of twine. Secure one end and braid the three strands together. You’ll need the braid long enough to wrap around the perimeter of the ornament and to create a 4-5” long hanging loop.

Glue the braided twine around the covered screw band forming a large loop for hanging at the top.

Wrap and tie another piece of twine around the base of the loop and attach a charm as well if you have one.

Lastly, glue some faux greenery to the top of the ornament on either side of the hanging loop.

This image shows the back side of the completed memory ornament, as you can see it’s neat and tidy!

How did your new keepsake ornament turn out? Make sure to show it off to us! Tag us on Facebook or Instagram– we can’t wait to see it!

More Thoughtful Keepsake Craft Ideas

No matter the occasion or time of year, we have plenty of ideas for making one-of-a-kind keepsake crafts and gifts including memory bear sewing patterns, adorable memory bunny, engraved slate coaster and the ideas below:

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