decoupaged handmade ornaments...

I'm so excited to show you some handmade ornaments I created the other day for one of my Papertrey Ink projects. They are sort of shabby and vintagey in feel. These were made very simply with a few wooden items from the craft store, some chandelier crystals and tinsel by Melissa Frances, tissue paper and stamps/ink!

Here are the supplies I used for one ornament (in this order from top to bottom):

I have 1 small chandelier crystal from Melissa Frances, a small wooden ball (1/2"), a wooden acorn (1 1/8"), a toy wheel (1"), a large wooden ball (2"), another toy wheel (1"), a medium ball (1"), and a long skinny chandelier crystal by Melissa Frances. These are all hot glued together in this order, and then I painted the whole thing white with acrylic paint. (Don't paint the crystals!) You can find these wooden pieces in the wooden section of your craft store. 

The crystals actually have a hole in the top of them, perfect for tying a string on for hanging. These are the tops of the ornaments.

These are the bottoms. I just love these crystals.

After I hot glued all of the pieces together and painted it white, I had to figure out a way to add the sentiment. If I stamped directly on the curved surface, it wouldn't work out so well. So, I thought I'd stamp onto a piece of white tissue paper and glue it on the front. I used Papertrey Ink's Christmas Blessings stamp set for the sentiments and the Holiday Photo Finishers for the swirls. I stamped the swirls first in a lighter color, such as gray or brown, then the sentiment in black, then tore out the image from the tissue paper.

Next, I added some wet glue to the center of the ornament on the large ball. The stamped tissue paper is placed over the glue and pressed down, making sure to press all of the edges down. Then I added more wet glue over the top of the image as well to seal it to the ornament. I used Tombow Mono Liquid Glue, but Mod Podge would work as well.

It's ok if the image gets a little wrinkled in the gluing process. To me, that's all in the charm of this piece! Here is the stamping on the other ornament before I applied it.

After adding the sentiments, hot glue a strip of tinsel around the top of the large ball.

The stamping does seem to get a bit lighter when you add the glue over the top, so be sure to do a darker stamping than I did here for the swirls....unless you want them to be subtle.

The finished size of these are almost 8" long. I think they'd be adorable as a set for Christmas, hanging over a mirror, hanging from a mantle!