How to Make Orange Slice Ornaments

Y’all I’m not entire­ly sure why it has tak­en me so long to make these adorable orange slice orna­ments but here we are! I final­ly did it and now I am look­ing for every lit­tle rea­son to dehy­drate some oranges! I am obsessed with the old fash­ioned, nat­ur­al homey feel that these lit­tle slices add to my Christ­mas tree and I am cer­tain you will love them just as much. 

Not to men­tion they check all of my Christ­mas DIY boxes…simple, beau­ti­ful and resourceful!

Do you ever get on a “kick” Like if you learn a new tech­nique or find some­thing you absolute­ly love then you wear it out because you are con­stant­ly going back to it?.…guilty! I must warn you, these lit­tle orange slice orna­ments might just be that new thing.

Here is what you’re gonna need.

Supplies

• Large naval oranges
• Sharp knife
• Oven and/or food dehydrator
• Cut­ting board
• Wood beads
• Jute twine
• Pen­cil or some­thing to poke a small hole
• Hot Glue and embell­ish­ments (option­al)

Step 1

Begin by slic­ing your naval oranges into thin slices. Try to get them as thin and even as pos­si­ble since this will help with the dry­ing time. 

Step 2

Arrange your slices on a cook­ie sheet. Try not to over­lap your slices if pos­si­ble. Over­lap­ping will slow down the dry­ing time.

My orange slices came out per­fect after 2 hours at 275 degree Fahren­heit in the oven and overnight in the food dehy­dra­tor. The oven time does most of the work but I feel like the dehy­dra­tor took all the last lit­tle bits of juice which is impor­tant espe­cial­ly if you plan to dec­o­rate with them. No one wants a rot­ten slice of fruit hang­ing from the tree right?

Once you are sat­is­fied with the dry­ness of the slices, you are ready to craft some unique ornaments!

To cre­ate these sim­ple orange slice orna­ments I start­ed by pok­ing a hole near the top rind. A pen­cil or a phillips screw dri­ver will do the trick.…nothing crazy here, it’s pret­ty self explanatory.

The rest of the process is real­ly quite sim­ple. Thread­ing some jute twine through the poked hole and fin­ish­ing with nat­ur­al wood beads is my pre­ferred method of orange slice orna­ment mak­ing but there are oth­er ways to make these lit­tle slices your own.

Like adding a touch of green­ery for instance. I had a lit­tle spruce pick in my craft stash I was able to use bits from to add a lit­tle more inter­est to these slices. I can’t wait to try my hand at a live gar­land with a few oranges min­gled in with it as well!