Glittery Grinchy Ornament

I babysit six-year-old twin girls.  Thing One and Thing Two.  We wanted to make ornaments for the Christmas tree.   I asked them if they had any ideas for what they would like to make.  Thing Two was just happy to be making something, but Thing One wanted glittery red hearts incorporated.  So, armed with this information, I turned to Google. A quick search led me here where I found the perfect idea.  Well, perfect enough.  It had glitter and hearts.  And they had recently watched The Grinch so this seemed perfect.  As we all know, the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that special Christmas day.

I didn't think that glittering the ornaments with the girls would be a good idea so I did that part at home.  I read so many tutorials online for how to do that that I can't give my source.  They all said the same thing.  The reason that I checked so many different sites was because I could not believe that something so simple actually worked.  After reading about six different tutorials, I decided that it must work and took the plunge.

First I wanted to jazz up the toppers, so I mooched some red and white glossy paint from Hubby.  

Red for the tops...

And white for the hangers.  I was thinking that the tops would mimic Santa's hat when I chose these colours.

I carefully washed four glass balls.  Once they were dry, I swirled some rubbing alcohol inside because a few of the tutorials suggested that this was a key step in preparing the ornaments.  Since I really did not want this to fail, I took that step.  This prep work is what took the longest!  Mostly waiting for the insides to dry.

Once the ornaments were dry I squirted a little bit of the floor polish in.  No need for a funnel like most sites say, there is a squirt top on the bottle that works great. Then I carefully swirled the polish all around the ornament, being careful not to shake as that would cause bubbles.  One or two ornaments needed an extra little bit of polish added.  Once the ornament was coated with polish, I left it upside down for a moment over a small disposable cup.  Not much drained out at all.  Then I poured a little Grinchy-green glitter inside.  Again, I didn't need a funnel because my glitter has a small hole for pouring that worked perfectly.  I swirled the glitter around carefully at first, but soon realized that it was okay to shake now to get the glitter to reach everywhere.  I dumped the excess into a clean disposable cup.  I should mention that I did each ornament one at a time.  I didn't (and still don't) know how much time I had before the polish dried too much in the ball.  I think it took less than ten minutes to glitter all four of these ornaments.  I left them overnight to dry.
Using a low-temp glue gun, I glued the red tops onto the balls.  Then I was ready to decorate!

The person who gave me this idea sewed her hearts together, but I thought that was more than the six year olds could handle so we just cut hearts out and glued them on.  I went for the cartoony look and coloured the edges of mine with a Sharpie.

Thing Two knocked hers off the table so they ended up having to decorate one between them.  They just cut out hearts (all by themselves) and they placed them, carefully, after I applied the not-too-hot glue.

Pretty awesome huh?
If you were keeping count and wondered where the fourth one went, my sixteen year old said she wanted to do one too.  But it is still sitting, unfinished, on a table.

Thanks for stopping by!
:)

Pin It