Sunday, November 11, 2007

Tutorial: Marbled Glass Ornaments

This is one of my favorite ways to make ornaments, and it's even easy enough for kids to enjoy. One year we did this as an activity after Thanksgiving dinner and it went great. This is also a great way to get a custom ornament color if you have a tree that needs a turquoise or hot pink or chocolate brown and can't find it.

You need: clear glass craft ornaments, craft paints (I used leaf green, metallic copper, metallic silver, metallic gold), disposable bathroom cups. That's really all.


Gee, Mendy, looks like you've got some glitter and glue in the picture. What is that for?

Well, I tried to use the glue and glitter and it turned out bad. Really, really bad. Ignore.

Here's how you do it!

1. Take the little top off of the glass ornament.

2. Squirt craft paint inside the ornament. Use any colors that you wish. I would warn against using too many colors inside one ornament, but it's totally up to you.

3. Swirl around a little bit, and then turn the ornament upside down and rest in the disposable bathroom cup, to allow the paint to cover the inside and drain.

The left one is leaf green and silver metallic. The right one is copper metallic and gold metallic.

After the paints have drained, turn the ornaments right side up (in the original box is great) and allow to dry overnight. Replace the tops and voila!

Uh, yeah. Looks like you started with 12 ornaments. ?????

Three of them fell victim to my glue/glitter idea (BAD! ICKY!) and one fell victim to Max.

Enjoy!

7 comments:

enso said...

This is cute and looks fun! Although I think the glitter looked so promising. It's too bad that was a bust, I too, would have wanted glitter in there somehow. :)

Mendy at Modern Charm said...

I know! I had an idea that I would coat the inside first with thinned out glue and sprinkle glitter. The glue would dry clear, the glitter would remain, then I would put in the paint.

Well, after letting the glue dry, I added the paint. Which reconstituted the glue. Ewww. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Kirsten said...

Will it work with tempera paints? I did one experiment that failed miserably.

Maybe you should mix the glitter with the paint.

Mendy at Modern Charm said...

I'm not sure about tempera paints?

Beki - TheRustedChain said...

Those are really beautiful!

I tried them one year and it was a disaster. Shouldn't be a hard project, but I managed to ruin it. I'll try again someday. ;-)

Suzy ~ lorenzstudio said...

I love how these turned out!

And by the way, I just got home from a Mary Kay party and I was wearing a headband I bought from you. Everyone commented on how much they loved it!

AnnieRoso said...

Wow, those turned out really pretty and this looks like a project that even my daughter (she's 4) could do without destroying too much of our house. Thanks for sharing! I'll be making glittery red ones to match my couch (which is red, but not glittery).