December Fun: Ornament Making!

After the horrific events of this past Friday, I don't feel like I can just begin blogging without acknowledging the lives that were lost, the lives that were scarred, and the lives that were changed forever. I don't usually ever have the television on during the day, but on Friday I would turn it on to watch the coverage, then have to turn it off because I could only stomach it for a short while. We have been praying for everyone involved. I will be participating in the blogging day of silence in honor of the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy on Tuesday, December 18th. If you blog, please consider doing the same.

I have mentioned on here a few times that Brianna has been participating in a class on Friday mornings. The class is called Fridays with Miss Shelly and is a one hour preschool class for 2 1/2 and 3 year olds. It's been a great experience. 

One day a few weeks ago, the class was Christmas themed. Our craft for the day was a super cute Christmas ornament that was also easy to make. After class, I thought it would be fun to reproduce the fun craft at home.

We began with 5 color of acrylic craft paint:

And one box of clear glass ornaments (purchased at Hobby Lobby for about $4). We invited Aunt Lisa and Chloe Jo to join us in the ornament making fun. Brianna was excited and being a stinker about taking a photo . . . as usual.

I actually didn't purchase the perfectly clear ornaments, but I got the ones that had a little bit or iridescent shimmer to them.

We began by taking the tops off of the ornaments:

Then, we filled them with a paint color of our choice. We had to use a good bit of paint.

We even mixed two colors in some of the ornaments:

Then, the girls rolled the ornaments around in their hands.

As they rolled, the paint covered the entire inside of the ornament.

This was a bit tedious, so it didn't take long for the girls to burn out.

But they enjoyed it for about 2 ornaments apiece.

Getting ready to make an escape :-):

After the entire inside of the ornament was covered in paint, we tied a ribbon to the top. Aren't the finished ornaments pretty?

This was very simple, but I love the end result! And, since you can buy acrylic paint in pretty much any color, I can make custom colored ornaments to match whatever I want!

Before I close this out, I would like to mention that once we hung the ornaments on the tree, a few of them got a little funky. And by funky, I mean that the paint settled at the bottom of the ornament leaving a clear spot in the ornaments that were close to a light on the tree. I think this happened because of the heat from the light ? To fix this problem, Chris and I re-rolled the ornaments to get paint coverage back, then took the tops off the the ornaments and them air dry for about a day. That fixed the problem right up!

What fun projects are you doing this season?