Last year we wanted to change up the tree from warm, fall type colors to shimmery, shiny, black and white, and circle- themed. I didn’t want to spend much, so we made most of our ornaments and found ribbon for half off! We have the same tree up this year, and I still love it and the memories of making the ornaments with my girls.
We made Marbled Christmas Balls, Silver Pipe-Cleaner Snowflakes, Circle Paper Ornaments, Glitter Glue Christmas Balls, Simple Mirror Ornaments, and Mini Black Pipe-Cleaner wreaths.
Homemade Christmas Marbled Balls
This is one of my very favorite Christmas crafts we have done together. I like when a craft ends up looking “professional” instead of “crafty.” I think it is the satisfaction of having something that looks like it was bought at a pricey store when it was not! You could use any 2 or 3 colors. We used black, silver and white. I’ve seen them done with red and white, they were really pretty and festive.
~Open a clear glass ball ornament.
~Squirt one color of paint (acrylic or tempura)
~Swirl. Let dry for a bit, but not entirely so it will still swirl with the added paint.
~Squirt with another color, swirl.
~Repeat with 3rd color if desired.
~Keep adding paint and swirling until desired look is achieved.
~Let dry upside down, we had quite a bit of excess paint drip out so we dried them over mugs.
~Loop pretty ribbon or wire hanger once dried to hang.
Glitter Glue Christmas Balls
These are pretty straight forward. Pick ball ornament. Choose glitter glue color. Decorate and let dry. My girls loved this one and really did a beautiful job. I would recommend you seal with modge podge, this year the glitter glue is peeling off because we didn’t.:(
Round Mirror Ornaments
Buy package of small round mirrors at a craft store. Quite a few come in a package, I only paid a couple bucks for them. Hot glue ribbon hanger to back. You could sandwich the ribbon between 2 mirrors and hot glue them together, we didn’t. These add so much sparkle to the tree. The tree lights reflect off the mirror. So pretty!
Pipe Cleaner SnowFlakes
Round Paper Mirrored Ornaments
We took card stock that had a beautiful print on it (this one even had some glitter on the paper), used a circle cutter and cut out a bunch of circles. We used a circle cutter on just plain black card stock to back the ornaments with. Sandwich a loop of ribbon between the print card stock circle and the black card stock circles. We embellished our smaller paper ornaments with a small round mirror glued to the middle of the ornament.
Ready To Decorate!
Black Pipe Cleaner Wreaths
The ribbon we used for these projects was wrapped around spools of cardboard. As we used the ribbon up, the round wreath shape, of the ends of the cardboard- ribbon spools, (make sense?) inspired me to wrap it with black pipe cleaners and use the pipe cleaner to make a loop for hanging. We took silver glitter glue to make little silver “berries” on the wreaths. You could just cut cardboard out into a wreath shape and wrap with pipe cleaner.
Our Tree This Year
Our Tree Last Year
DANA
November 30, 2010 at 3:15 amThis is a great post! I would love for you to link up to my Strut Your Stuff Party! http://danajeanward.blogspot.com/2010/11/link-up-giveaway-and-winner.html
Kim
December 19, 2009 at 11:28 pmBeautiful tree, thanks for sharing!
Lori
December 16, 2009 at 1:25 amWhat a gorgeous for a fraction of the cost! I love it! I copied your recipes for ornaments and plan to make some of my own! Thanks for sharing.
Kim @ NewlyWoodwards
December 12, 2009 at 2:38 pmSo pretty. I love that you change it up to meet your needs each year. Awesome job with all the DIY. =)
Thanks again. Stop by again.
The Girl Creative
December 12, 2009 at 12:59 pmThanks so much for joining Creating Christmas. Great blog – glad you found me. 🙂 The tree looks great!
Amy
December 12, 2009 at 7:51 amThanks! We bought the table from Target of all places. The top scratched easily, so we had a large piece of glass cut to protect the top, which has worked great!
Its hard taking the step to paint real wood! We have a lot of wood work in our home and I would love to paint some of it white, but have not been brave enough yet! I know what you mean…
Anonymous
December 9, 2009 at 7:03 pmSo cute! I want your black table. Did you paint it that way, or buy it that way? I wish that I could temporarily cover our oak mission amish made table in black, then in say five years have it back oak.
Mod Podge Amy
December 9, 2009 at 3:54 amLove your ornaments! How cute!