Christmas Crafts
Ornaments
These first ornaments are made by swirling paint inside them. First you need to clean the inside of the glass with either rubbing alcohol or a 50/50 solution of vinegar and water. Sit them upside down in a cup so they can drain and completely dry.
Once they are dry, put a small squirt of paint inside and swirl it around. Continue with different colors until you get the effect that you want. Turn the bulbs upside down in a cup and the excess paint will drain out.
The ornaments below are made by putting sticker shapes on the ornament and then spraying them with "Stained Glass" paint. Once they are dry, peal off the stickers and then spray with a Frosted Paint. Very easy.
Tip: Use a pencil or dowel to support the ball during drying time by placing the dowel in craft foam or a small vase.
I saw these ornaments on the Carol Duvall show. HGTV seems to have removed the original link to the how-to instructions, so I will try to explain here.
Basically, you print a picture on a piece of transparency paper, cut it out (in a circle shape), roll it up on a pencil and slide it into the ornament where it will open up and fill the inside of the ball.
Tips: For a 4" ornament, you can get four images on a page. Always print them out on a test page of plain paper first and make sure that when you cut them out the circles don't overlap each other. Stained glass style images work great as do images with simple designs and bright colors. Dark colors tend to blend together too much. Remember if the image is white, it will be clear on the transparency paper. Choose a paper that is appropriate for your style printer (inkjet or laser). This special paper can be found in bulk at office supply stores, but I found smaller packages online through amazon.com. A small amount of glitter or fake snow can be added to the inside. A little hot glue can be used to seal the opening at the hanger so the snow or glitter doesn't come out.
The paper Christmas ornaments below are made from recycled Christmas cards. See how I made them here.
These bells were made for Christmas 2007 and I really like how they turned out. The one on the top far left was painted like the glass balls at the top of the page, but the remaining five were decoupaged with tissue paper.
Page 1 2