Folk Art Decorations 🌟 CCC 2025

Folk art Christmas craft tutorial for tree decorations

These folk art decorations are a beautiful way to bring a handmade touch to your holiday decor this year.

Inspired by the Nordic folk art style, the designs feature delicate cutouts and clean shapes that look beautiful hung on a Christmas tree, or even tied onto a Christmas present as an extra-special gift tag.

Each piece is made from three layers of cardstock, with five shapes included: a bauble, star, heart, angel and a Christmas tree.

The cutouts in each design include all sorts of seasonal details, including reindeer, stars, gingerbread men, bells and baubles, along with tulips, laurels and leafy flourishes that echo traditional Nordic tree decorations.

Folk art decorations SVGs from Craft with Sarah

Cut them from white, silver and red glitter card for a bit of sparkle, or go with plain tones for a simpler, more rustic look. The colour contrast between the layers really helps those tiny shapes stand out.

They take a little while to cut because of all the small details, but they are quick and easy to put together.

You can hang them using ribbon, thread or thin twine, depending on your style.

The designs are lightweight and cleanly shaped, so they’ll look just as good on a full Christmas tree as they will on smaller branches or minimalist displays.

These Christmas decorations can be reused year after year, and there’s something extra satisfying about seeing your own handmade work shining from the tree.

This project is part of the 2025 Christmas Craft Countdown.

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Folk art decorations: materials supply list

Here is a list of the materials that I used to make this project.

Please note that some of the links included in this article are affiliate links, which means that if you click through and make a purchase I may receive a commission (at no additional cost to you). You can read my full disclosure at the bottom of the page.

This project is suitable for the following types of Cricut machines: Explore series, Maker series, Joy Xtra and Joy.

Nordic folk art SVGs

Foundation learning

If you're new to making papercrafts with your cutting machine, check out these links to get you started.

They include videos on topics such as: which file to use with your type of cutting machine, how to load the files into your cutting machine's software, how to cut cardstock with your type of cutting machine, how to recolor and modify/customize the cut files and tips for displaying your projects.

The following tutorials are Cricut-specific, but many of the ideas will work similarly with a Silhouette or ScanNCut machine and any cut files that are shared in them are compatible with all types of cutting machine.

Nordic Christmas tree decorations video tutorial

Watch the video below to see how to make this project. Keep scrolling for a written tutorial.

Written tutorial (with photos!)

Here’s how to make Nordic folk art inspired Christmas decorations using a Cricut machine.

Step 1) Download the cutting file & upload to Design Space

Get the files using the box below.

Purchase the File(s)

This cut file is available as part of the Instant Access Bundle.

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Or, purchase this design individually here

Before you upload the SVGs to Design Space, you need to unzip the download folder that they come in.

After unzipping, upload the SVG file(s) into your cutting machine software.

Not sure how to use cut files with your type of machine? The following links lead to videos on how to open cut files in:

The download folder also contains printable PDF versions of the templates for hand cutting.

If you are using Cricut Design Space, start a new project and then click the “Upload” button on the left of the screen.

You can then either click “Browse” to find the file on your computer, or drag-and-drop it.

Select the file in the “01 Cricut Version” subfolder called svg-01-folk-art-decorations-craftwithsarah.svg

All five decorations come in the same SVG file to make it quicker to upload them.

Press “Upload” on the next screen.

After uploading, the design should be automatically inserted onto your Canvas.

To hide the left sidebar (to give you more space for designing!), click the arrow that’s about half way down the page.

Folk art decorations part 1

If the design doesn’t get inserted onto your Canvas, it will show under “Uploads” in your “Recently Uploaded Images”. Click on it and then press “Add to Canvas” to put it onto your Project.

Step 2) Size the folk art ornaments

The first time I made these, I resized all of them to the same height (about five inches tall). That turned out to be a mistake!

The narrower shapes looked tiny, and the bauble looked huge. Even though the height was the same, the overall sizes didn’t look right together.

To fix that, I adjusted each ornament so they’re all in proportion. The updated SVG file you download contains decorations at a great size for your tree, but you can make them larger or smaller if you wish.

To resize the decorations, first click the design and press “Ungroup” to separate out each ornament.

Folk art decorations part 2

Change the size of each decoration individually.

If you are cutting the decorations on the original Cricut Joy machine, you’ll need to make them a maximum of 4.5 inches on the shortest side.

It’s hard to tell on the screen how big something will look in your hand. Before cutting into your glitter card, it’s a good idea to do a quick test cut.

Click on each ornament and hide the top two layers by clicking the little “eye” icons in the Layers panel.

Folk art decorations part 3

Change all remaining layers to the same colour so it will cut on the same sheet. Cut from cardstock that you don’t mind wasting, as this is just to check the size.

Folk art decorations part 4

Alternatively, change the bottom layers to “Draw” temporarily and have your Cricut draw the shapes onto some paper.

This lets you see exactly how large each piece will be when it’s finished. If something looks too big or small, you can adjust it before wasting any good materials.

Folk art decorations part 5

Folk art decorations part 6

If you’re not sure which size you’ll prefer, you can test a few at once. Here’s an easy trick.

After resizing an ornament, add a small text label in Design Space with the size (for example, “4.5 in”).

Change that text to “Draw” mode and “Attach” it to the shape using the paperclip icon.

Then, when you do your test cut, you’ll know for sure which size is which.

Folk art decorations part 7

After completing your test-cut, turn the hidden layers back on and change the colour of the bottom layers back to the original ones.

Step 3) Make the decorations double-sided (optional)

If you want your ornaments to be double-sided, you’ll need to duplicate and flip them.

Drag your ornaments so that they are roughly in a row. Select all the ornaments and “Group” them.

“Duplicate” the group to make a copy.

Folk art decorations part 8

Click the duplicated group and click “Flip > Flip Horizontal” to make it a mirror image of the originals. This is essential to ensure the decorations will line up when you glue them back-to-back.

Folk art decorations part 9

Step 4) Cut out all the pieces

When you’re happy with how the project is looking in Design Space, click “Make” and follow the instructions on-screen to cut out all the pieces.

To change the paper size, go into the dropdowns over on the left side of the screen and choose the paper size that you want to use. You need to change it for every single colour.

To save space on your cardstock, you can move things around by clicking and dragging. Make sure when you’re moving things about that nothing overlaps because otherwise, it won’t cut out properly.

TIP: New to using cardstock with your cutting machine? Check out these machine help guides for Cricut, Silhouette and ScanNCut that go through every step of the process, including tips for getting the best quality cuts from your machine.

Step 5) Stick the decorations together

My favourite glues to use on papercraft projects are Bearly Art Glue and Collall All Purpose Glue.

These are great because they don’t “warp” or bend the cardstock like some glues do. You can use as much of it as you want and the card stays perfect – and it dries perfectly clear too!

Bearly Art Glue comes with a tiny nozzle to make it easy to apply glue to small areas of card. The Collall glue doesn’t come with this, so it’s easiest to decant it into needle tip applicator bottles so that you have more control.

Folk art decorations part 10

Gluing the decorations together is easy. Each one is only 3 pieces, so it’s easy to know the order to put them together in.

Glue the front of each ornament together first. Then, if you are doing double-sided decorations, stick the reversed version of each shape together.

Glue the front and back together to make it double-sided.

Finally, add some ribbon to each decoration.

Fold the ribbon in half, pull the loop through, and thread the ends through the loop to secure it. Tie a bow or simple knot, and your decoration is ready to hang.

Folk art decorations part 11

Your five Christmas tree decorations are now ready! I recommend waiting for the glue to completely dry before hanging them on your tree.

Folk art decorations part 12

Nordic folk art inspired Christmas tree decorations

These folk art decorations are sturdy, sparkly, and perfect for adding a personal touch to your Christmas tree.

Whether you make them in bright glitter cardstock or simple solid colors, they’ll look beautiful and festive.

Yes, you might end up with a little glitter everywhere, and be finding it until *next* Christmas… but that’s part of the fun of Christmas crafting, isn’t it?

DIY Nordic tree decorations to make with a Cricut

Love making Christmas decorations?

Check out these other Christmas ornaments to make with your cutting machine:

Happy crafting,
Sarah x