Glass Ornament Balls

What You Will Need

- clear glass Christmas ornament balls

- acrylic craft paint

- empty bottles or jars

- glitter, beads, confetti or other embellishments

First, acquire clear glass ornament balls. They have them at craft stores, places with craft departments, etc. Choose the paints colours that you wish to use. You want to use the craft paints in the squeeze bottles, not your good acrylics. I like to use both flat and metallic. Set out your bottles or jars without the lids.

Once you have everything, remove the hangers tops from the glass balls then squeeze paint inside. There is no precision to this – squeeze and drip as you see fit. Use one or multiple colours. Then turn the balls upside down in the mouth of a jar and let the paint run out. If the inside is not coated to your satisfaction, let the paint dry completely – at least 24 hours, and add more. You may want to layer thin paint coats as if it is too thick, it may pull away from the inside of the ball once it dries.

When everything is dry, you can add embellishments to the outside of the ornaments. Something else you can do is take glue that dries clear and squeeze it inside the balls, then add glitter,  small beads, etc. and one that is dry, add your paint.

These can be made for the holidays or as year round decorations. I have taken some, removed the hanger, set them upside down in a small ring and used them as small vases. If you do this and you use water, you may find that you can only do it once as it could comprise the paint.

 And that’s about it. It really is easy and it’s fun to see just what they look like when they are done. Here is a couple that I did a few years ago. One has very fine green glitter on the outside and the other has small silver beads that have since tarnished.

Tags: christmas, crafts, decorate, ebsq, how-to, live, ornaments