Painted Quilt Block Ornament Tutorial: 2025 Edition
Ho ho ho! It's Suzy Quilt's official Christmas elf here with the must-have ornament of the holiday season — DIY painted quilt block ornaments! We collaborated with our friends at Cut Once Quilts to turn our popular Botanical Block of the Month quilt pattern into 12 individual laser-cut wooden ornaments that you can paint in any color you like.
Keep reading for tips on how to create your own wooden painted quilt block ornaments, plus get our holiday paint color palette!
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The Botanical Block of the Month Quilt
One benefit of subscribing to The Cutting Table is access to our annual Block of the Month (BOM). Each year, Suzy designs a new sampler quilt, and we release one block pattern per month. Each block also comes with a companion tutorial of something that can be made with the block if you're not planning to make all twelve.
Our 2025 BOM was botanically themed, and the blocks are so dreamy. Check out the full quilt here!
The Botanical BOM uses eight colors plus a background fabric. Knowing where the colors go is important when you're deciding what paint colors to use for the wooden painted ornaments. Here's a diagram that shows where the colors for the original Botanical BOM quilt are placed.
Trending patterns!
You can see that there are already some traditional holiday colors in the original fabric palette! Some are color-matched to paint colors, with some additional Christmas cheer thrown in.
Painted Quilt Block Ornaments Tutorial
There are a few important things to know about painting your quilt block ornaments before you get started. I'll cover much more about this in the tips later in the blog post, so keep reading!
- Acrylic paint is recommended.
- Dark paint colors will need two coats.
- Each laser-cut wood ornament has masking paper on top that should be removed one color at a time.
- To save time, you can skip painting the background. I wanted the entire ornament to have the same texture, but if you're in a rush, just focus on the main eight colors.
Painted Quilt Block Ornament Materials
- Suzy Quilts Botanical Block of the Month Ornaments by Cut Once Quilts
- Paint brushes for acrylic paint
- Paint palette
- Two-ounce bottles of Americana DecoArt Acrylic Paint in the following colors, which correspond to the placement of colors in the Botanical Block of the Month quilt:
- Color 1: Hauser Dark Green
- Color 2: Blush Pink
- Color 3: Cinnamon Stick
- Color 4: Sea Glass
- Color 5: Aloe
- Color 6: Antique Gold
- Color 7: Santa Red
- Color 8: Deep Burgundy
- Background: Buttermilk
Tip 1: Test your brush and paint colors before painting a quilt block.
Buying a multi-pack of paint brushes (like the one listed in the materials section of this post) is helpful. This will give you options for what type of paint brush and detail brush work best for you.
Test the brushes out by making a paint swatch card! Paint a small square of each color onto a piece of paper. This will give you an idea of how the brushes feel, which one you like, and how the paint looks when dry. You can see in the picture below that some of the colors I chose already show that they need two coats to look even.
My personal preference was a flat brush for almost all of the painting, which allowed me to follow the straight lines between colors easily. I also used a very small detail brush for hard-to-paint intersections as well as for cleaning up any errors where one color was accidentally painted on top of another.
Tip 2: Peel the masking paper off by color.
It's hard to tell when you first look at the wood ornaments, but each one has a layer of masking paper on top of the laser-cut side. Don't worry — this paper peels off very easily! But there are a few things to consider as you're working.
First, when peeking the masking paper off, try not to pull it up from a corner. I find that this can cause other corners to pull up as well, which you don't want. You only want to pull off the masking paper covering one paint color at a time.
Instead of pulling the masking paper off from the corner, pull it up beginning on a side, as shown below. This helps to keep all of the masking paper protecting other areas of the ornament in place.
Here is what this ornament looks like with just the masking paper for Color 2 pulled off. The rest of the masking paper is left on. It's similar to putting painter's tape onto trim before painting a wall — you want all of the other ornament areas covered for as long as possible.
Tip 3: Always use a small amount of paint.
These ornaments are 3" square, so you're painting very small areas. You don't want your painted quilt block ornaments to be lumpy or uneven looking because you applied too much paint. Always start with a small amount on your brush, and continue adding more small amounts.
Tip 4: Paint over the masking paper when you can.
I recommend painting the colors first and then the background. That makes it easier to keep track of what areas still have masking paper on them as you paint.
In the pictures below, only the masking paper for Color 2 is pulled up.
Tip 5: Rinse your brush often.
Don't just rinse your brush in between changing colors. Sometimes, you'll find that paint residue dries on the brush and can make it challenging to paint such small areas. These quilt block ornaments are very detailed, so rinse your brush any time it feels hard to paint accurately.
Tip 6: Use a flat brush to follow straight lines.
It is helpful to paint as many areas that do not touch as possible when starting. Below, you can see that I painted the Color 2 and Color 6 areas of this block first because they do not touch. Next, I'll paint the Color 7 area.
Use a small, flat brush to paint the areas where colors are next to each other with a masking paper barrier. As you can see below, the flat brush allows you to get very close to neighboring colors while still controlling the paint. It is highly likely you will accidentally paint one color over the other, and I'll cover that in another tip.
Tip 7: Use two coats of paint for dark colors.
The picture below shows one coat of Color 7 paint, the vibrant Santa Red. After drying, the single coat looks splotchy and uneven.
Simply add a second coat of paint and it evens up!
Tip 8: Paint the background last.
If you choose to paint the background of the quilt block like I did, save that for last. I found it to be easier to clean up any mistakes when the error was accidentally getting light paint on top of dark paint.
Tip 9: Use a fine detail brush to fix errors.
A very small brush is helpful for hard to reach intersections in the painted quilt block ornaments, like the angle shown below.
This small brush is also helpful for tidying up your paint job. In the picture below, I accidentally got some of the background color onto the bright red. I used the smallest brush in my set to applying more red onto the error and cover it up.
Make Your Own Painted Quilt Blocks Today!
Thank you so much to our friends at Cut Once Quilts for bringing this project to life. Your holiday season is about to be extra quilty, and we know you love that! When you paint your ornaments, be sure to share them on Instagram and tag @suzyquilts so we can share and celebrate your work. Now, get ready to deck your halls!
