Doggoneit! This wreath. This huge wreath with it’s beautiful ornaments…it was going to be a good project. I saved it for the middle. 22″ x 17″ of Christmas cheer.
However…
I bought a huge tube of ornaments. Then, for good measure, I also bought a smaller tube of ornament balls. But this thing requires six MILLION ornaments! ugh.
So IF you were making this, you simply lay your wreath down and start hot gluing your ornaments on, using the table as your ‘wall back’.
Hopefully this is a popular ornament color that they’ll bring back again next year. COVID and Crafting is difficult sometimes!
I guess I will pack it all away and finish it next year?? Had I known I would be short this much (guesstimating was never my strong suit – but I SERIOUSLY had a LOT of ornaments to work with), I might have worked in other things like pinecombs or yarn balls or something.
Nothing to sweat over now though. That baby is born and I’m going to have to bow to defeat. What a typical 2020 wreath, huh??!
Instead, I’ll show you our 2020 glass ornaments we’ve collected so far. I say ‘so far‘, but I think we’re probably done for the year. It will be fun to collect more and more every year until we have a dedicated Christmas tree just for them. As I mentioned before, these are like collecting charms for a charm bracelet. Each ornament has meaning and ‘spoke’ to us.
I ordered the masked Santa online to commemorate 2020. When I opened the package his weird blue eyes freaked me out a bit. Again…how appropriate, right?
EEEEEK.
Crafts are fun and challenging and you do everything you can to overcome the obstacles along the way. But sometimes, you lay the project aside and say, ‘I’m done. For now anyway. Maybe later.’ I’ll be first in the store when the Christmas decorations start coming out in 2021. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find similar colors.
Have you ever headed into a project and quickly thought: “Excuse me, ma’am. Have we met?!” This was that project for me. My self-awareness was off kilter the day I chose this particular craft project.
WHAT possessed me to push nine gazillion sequins into a styrofoam ball with nine gazillion pins?! However…I really like it.
What’s really cute of me, is that I bought a six-pack of styrofoam balls to make SIX!*doubles over laughing* I think you can guess how many I made. If you guessed one, you’d be correct. If you guessed 1/4th of one, you probably know me best.
I was surprised to find out that they make pins specifically for sequins. They are a bit shorter than regular pins and they were hanging right next to the sequins in the sewing section of the store.
A couple of hints: separate out the sequins and the pins into bowls. They’re much easier to grab that way. You’d probably benefit from a thimble, which I didn’t want to dig up so I used the tail of my shirt. (Do whatcha gotta do.)
I started at one end and started spiraling outward. I wasn’t overly concerned with the sequins being in a continuous pattern. I don’t really think that’s necessary. Just make sure each sequin overlaps.
As I finished up, I left a small space open where I put a dollop of hot glue. I then put a pin through one sequin and pushed it into my looped, black velvet ribbon and pushed it all into the spot with the hot glue. The ribbon serves as a hanger or is just decorative.
I love the look. It’s very shiny and elegant. I imagined putting a nametag through the push pin and ribbon to set at each place setting. They can hang on a tree or a doorknob or cabinet pull or….on and on.
As I was debating with myself and encouraging myself to keep going (-ha!), I thought about how this would make a good project for a child who was diligent and dedicated. As long as they’re careful and understand overlapping each sequin to cover the white styrofoam, I think they’d feel very confident and proud of the end result. So parents – think about semi-supervising this project and letting your focused kid dig into it.
I included in this place setting a vase of white hydrangea (you know I can’t get enough hydrangea in my life.) I filled a vase with a bag of fresh cranberries then covered them with water. It’s a nice pop of color on a tablescape. They also last quite a long time if you change out the water occasionally, which will turn pinkish-red so it’ll need a refresh. When the hydrangeas are gone, I’ll drop a little votive candle into the top of the cranberries and water.
Hanging separately or with many others grouped together, when the light hits the metal and the sequins on these sequined ornaments, it’s very pretty and magical. Save a few of those sequins for sprinkling around.
I proudly present to you my ONE sequin ball. I didn’t think I’d finish it at times, but am so glad I stuck to it. When the season is over I will be locking it in our fireproof safety deposit box!
*said only partly facetiously*
What do you think? Do you have what it takes? (For the record, what it takes are calloused fingers and upper arm strength!) These would be lovely at a wedding in the chosen colors. This is where you can be a brideszilla, though, and delegate others to do the work!
Craft number three and I think it might be my favorite one.
It all started with this set of pens I bought a few months ago. I adore this color scheme (craft room 2021 goal.) As someone who has a pretty neutral palette for the rest of my house, the flip side of my brain loves bright colors with a stark white background. So I took my pens to Michael’s with me as I was picking out my 2020’s 20 Holiday Crafts projects.
There are two projects here: ornaments with sprinkles and drip paint ornaments.
EEP! I love them both so much.
Here’s how I did them.
For the sprinkles: For assistance, cut the tops off a few water bottles so your clear glass ornament can rest inside (holiday stuff is 50% off right now so go grab a few containers of these.)
Carefully take the metal top off the ornaments. Using clear varnish of any kind, pour a few tablespoons inside your ornament. I used a piping bag but it would’ve been much easier had I had a funnel (which you can’t use for food afterwards, obviously.)
Roll the ornament around until the varnish is coating the whole inside of the ornament.
Then turn the ornament upside down on the water bottle. You could also use Dixie cups or something similar.
It’s important you make yourself wait 30 minutes. The varnish needs to dry somewhat but still have a sticky texture.
Using a different funnel, start filling the bottom of your ornament with sprinkles (below I will go through my trial and errors with different kinds.)
Keep adding sprinkles until you can move them all around the inside of the ornament. If the varnish is still too wet, the sprinkle’s colored coating will ‘melt off’ and it won’t stick to the ornament. I waited 30 minutes each time and it always worked. So there’s no pressure, take your time.
Replace the metal top of the ornament and voila! – you’re done!
I’m not saying this is a ‘neat and tidy’ craft. Our dog, Tilly, might be eating sprinkles off the floor for the next few months.
The drip paint ornament was a lot of fun. It goes against everything I’ve ever known about painting. Mixing paint colors together while still wet makes one big muddy mess of a color. But the flip side of the paint looks so pretty!
I again used some water bottles with the top cut off. Take the metal top off your ornament. I found it very helpful to keep my paint bottles well-shaken and turned upside down. The paint needs to be ready to squirt out when you need it.
And that’s all you do. Squirt one color, then turn the ornament and squirt out a little of the next color, etc.
As your ornament fills up, turn it around to find uncovered areas and squeeze a little more paint into those places.
You’ll go through a lot of excess paint. The paint overlaps and that’s completely okay.
Once the sides are covered then turn your ornament upside down to let it dry. I found the best way to let them dry is to leave them upside down overnight.
The color combinations for both projects are vast. Go with traditional red and white. Or maybe gold. The vibrancy of the drip paint inside the clear glass is magnified and beautiful. I plan on making more of these very soon.
Here are some thoughts on the various sprinkles I used…
The small dot confetti is the absolute best coverage, no doubt about it. In the below ornament I started with some star sprinkles but they are heavier and don’t fully cover the inside so I also poured in some small dots to fill in the gaps. I like the result, but it was a little anxiety-producing at first. -ha
Then I mixed some sprinkles together to see how they’d do (did I mention I really like sprinkles and have a variety of them at home!)
The type of sprinkles that did not work well at all are the ‘pearlized’ sprinkles. The texture doesn’t adhere as well as the other sprinkles. I was disappointed, thinking some white and clear would look magical too. Had these not been pearlized it would be a nice snowy look.
I love the way these turned out and will certainly make more this season. I have a tabletop white tree that I think these will go perfectly on. But then again, this bowl full of goodness is making me happy just the way they are.
Please give this one a try. You’ll love the outcome! (and so will your puppy.)
Resilience Reimagined 