Hi Friends!

When I was hanging up all the ornaments on the tree this year, I realized my favorites were all the homemade ones. The ones with their little hand prints or cute paintings. Those are the ones I like the best. I plan on making a few homemade ones with the boys but I thought it would be a neat idea to use their photo in an ornament for family this year. We live far away from family and won’t be able to make it over to spend the holidays with them. I thought a photo ornament would make a sweet gift as a little reminder on their tree that we are thinking of them.

They were very simple to make and you don’t need very many supplies.

Supplies you need are:

• Card stock (plain and decorative)
• Color Printer
• Craft Snow
• Ornaments (I used clear plastic ones from Michael’s)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Ribbon / Twine / Hot Glue

The first step (and possibly the hardest of this tutorial) is printing your pictures. I printed mine from my home printer on card stock.  My ornament measured about 3 inches across so I made a circle in Photoshop and used a clipping mask to create my circle pictures.  If you do not have access to Photoshop feel free to save my circle template as a guide for cutting a regular 4 x 6 photo.  You can just print a few photos on card stock (or have them printed) and use the circle as a guide for cutting the photo out.

Once my pictures were cut into circles, I used that as a guide to cut the back of the ornament. I choose this black paper with handwritten Christmas sayings. Once that was cut I glued them together so that one side showed my picture and the other was the design side. I used Glue Dots but you can also use regular glue (allow for some drying time).

Now it’s time to prep my ornament.  I used the plastic ornaments from Michael’s. I opted for these over glass because I will be shipping them and… I have kids that love to play with them. The ones I picked are a little flatter compared to the regular ball ornaments.

I used my Silhouette to cut out the date in adhesive vinyl. If you don’t have a Silhouette, you can use stickers or even write the date on with a Sharpie. In my animated gif up there, I am showing how I use clear contact paper to apply the vinyl to my ornament.

Once your date is on the ornament you can add the craft snow. I used a cupcake liner as a funnel to get the snow into the globe. It’s really messy if you don’t have some sort of funnel! My black yoga pants were covered in craft snow and I think I somehow got some in my mouth. No joke.

Roll your picture and stick into the ornament. I used a pen to pop the picture back open once inside the ornament. I played around with the paper until I was happy with how it was laying. If you push it the opposite way of how it was rolled it really does “pop” into place nicely.

                                                                                           The back of the ornament

I used twine and ribbon to decorate the ornament. I hot glued a bow on top and used twine as the hanger.

That’s it!  I will be adding these ornaments to the Grandparents gifts this year. I hope it brings a smile to their face when they open them!

Picture credit: Ken from Frameworthy Photography