25 ideas for decorating clear glass ornaments
I keep seeing all these great ideas for decorating and/or filling clear glass ornaments (on Pinterest, of course!), so I decided to compile a big list of all my favorites. Just click on the picture to take you to the tutorial by the original creator.
This is so rustic, and I love the tiny little pine cones:
Here’s a simpler version, but equally gorgeous (I think this might be a spring of rosemary):
And since I’m on a rustic theme, isn’t this cute? A little bit of holly, faux snow, and some tiny wooden blocks, and you’ve got yet another variation:
An ornament filled with pearls… very elegant.
You could even fill an ornament with cheap dollar store beaded necklaces!
Or mini gift bows! So cute.
I think this is my favorite idea of all… put your kid’s Christmas list inside an ornament and you’ve got a keepsake forever. How awesome will that be years from now?
Here’s a couple of different ideas for using fake snow. This one is simply a paper tree cut out, glittered, and surrounded by snow:
A tiny bottle brush tree sitting in snow:.
A snow filled ornament, with a simple piece of ribbon wrapped around the outside:
These are adorable. Just some snow, easy painted face, and a baby sock for a hat:
I hope you can stand all this cuteness, ’cause here’s another one. A melted snowman inside the ornament. Oh. Em. Goodness….
How about rolling up a bunch of strips of paper? (or ribbon…?)
Solid red paper strips made into a Santa belly ornament:
I have seen paper strips cut from books inside glass ornaments before, but this is different; the book pages are punched into snowflake shapes:
I would have never thought rolls of yarn and rope would look so great in an ornament:
How about filling an ornament with jingle bells? So festive.
I also found a few ideas for great wedding keepsakes. This one is filled with dried petals from a bridal bouquet:
And this one is filled with strips cut out from a wedding invitation (This would be a FABULOUS gift idea for the newlyweds!):
(I found this picture on Pinterest but the link was broken, and unfortunately, I couldn’t find where it came from…)
Prepare to be wowed. Peacock feathers inside glass ornaments, and hung in a cluster together. Simply STUNNING.
And here are a couple of ornaments I’ve come up with in the past:
Seashells and sand inside an ornament makes a great vacation keepsake:
Fill an ornament with holly berries:
Or if you’re a Barbie fanatic like me, fill an ornament with Barbie shoes!
Filled with popcorn:
Or, coat the inside of the ornaments with glitter:
Have you ever crafted with clear glass ornaments? I’d love to hear the ideas you’ve come up with!
Wow, Those are amazing! I think my favorite is the Santa Clause one.
I love it too! It’s so clever. :)
great ideas !!
I love Christmas too!!! a new idea is always welcomed… very pretty,,,,
Thanks, Mary! :)
Great, gorgeous and cute ideas! Thanks for sharing :)
Merry Christmas
Thanks, Melissa, and Merry Christmas to you, too!
Wow! These are great! Thanks for sharing them. I wish I’d found your site before the holidays got so busy.
Thanks, Susan!
These are all really very cute and clever! All the ones I made are on my tree, and I’m having
withdrawals from not making any in about 4 days, yikes! I better get busy again. Yours are
fabulous, keep sharing!!!
Thanks, Peggy! :)
Please tell me how to get the fake snow into the ball! This is impossible!!!
Margie, I’m sorry you are having trouble. I used a small funnel and only put a little bit of the snow in at a time, and used my finger to push it through. It did take a few minutes for me to do it that way.
Someone else left a comment saying that they used a stick to push it through. So, maybe a toothpick would really help, to kind of push and swirl around the bottom of the funnel to get all the snow through.
I hope this helps you!
I found a very easy way….I bought a can of spray glue, spritzed a bunch inside then quickly poured whatever desired then shake it around, worst case if its spotty just use a Q-tip to add a bit of glue then glitter again, I actually only used white fluff like that beautiful white glitter, sugar, salt….so I just poured a cpl cups of whatever in a large bowl and a little measuring spoon to pour it in, this way you can pour it in, shake excess out. You can also add dry kool-aid to sugar/salt for smthn bright & MUCH easier to sweep up unlike glitter!
you can use hairspray too, simple
Since discovering your blog, I’ve decided that my daughter and I will make a Christmas ornament a month with her friends.
I am so glad to hear that! That sounds like a lot of fun, and you will have lots of new ornaments for the tree next year. Have fun! :)
I absolutely loved every one of these. Thank-you so much for compiling all these refreshingly creative ideas. I made the sand beach ornament, using crushed sea glass sand from Glass Beach in Hawaii, white-washed some shells and tossed in a Barbie flip-flop for good measure. I stiffened some ribbon and made a sweet bow. Voila – beautiful!! Happy Holidays to all-
I have been making mod podged ornaments this year. Mix mod podge and paint… Let dry in a sheet and you can peel it like a sticker and cut it into shapes. I swirled different colors and its different and beautiful
The Barbie shoe ornament is the best! I need to go in the attic and get all my old barbie shoes so that I can smile and think of my childhood every year that I put that ornament on the tree. Thanks for sharing.
Great ideas! I have a couple sets I created this year and then also gave individual ones for gifts. Check out my blog to see them!!
~Heather Boone
Wonderful ideas! We also did a (messy!) kids’ craft — we cut out squares of white tulle fabric (maybe 5×5″ or 6×6″?), sprinkled various colors & shapes of sequins & metallic confetti (snowfakes, stars, circles) on a square of tulle, then crumpled it up and stuffed it inside a clear plastic ornament where it expanded again. All of the supplies we got at Michaels. I thought we might use beads, but the confetti is good because it kind of catches in the tulle and anchors in place. It gives a soft snowy effect.
The confetti made a big mess, but the kids had fun scooping up handfuls and dropping it on the tulle. :-) You could actually glue the sequins & confetti onto the tulle, for more accurate placement and less mess. And any colour of tulle would work, but the white tulle looks like snow so it’s pretty. Our Dollarama store had translucent sort of taffeta in various metallics, which I’m sure would also look very nice stuffed in there.
We also did another craft with the kids where we cut out squares of cotton/poly tartan fabric with pinking shears, and let them crumple up that fabric and stuff it into the plastic ornaments. The fabric expands nicely. I imagine you could use any fabric that would look nice on both sides. Or you could glue together two pieces with the reverse sides facing in (like velvet), and crumple & stuff that.
And, I have 2 ornaments from the 1980s where metallic paper was artfully crumpled and stuffed inside glass globes. One is red and one is green. Obviously they didn’t crumple it into a tight ball; I’m thinking they used a chopstick or plastic spoon end and just shoved it in through the small hole bit by bit, leaving some areas still fairly flat. It pretty much fills the ball. I wonder if origami paper would work for that, too. Or, shredding the origami paper into strips like that example with the wedding invitation.
Merry Christmas!
The sand and shells ornament made me think how awesome it would be to keep small mementos from a vacation or special day, write the date and details on the ornament and fill with the collected items. Then you have a tree filled with memories
When you put the ornament away how do you keep it from getting messed up like the seashells getting mixed in the sand, so it looks the same when you use it again
I am trying to buy glass tear drop shaped ornaments to fill with paint. Cannot find a web site that sells them. Have any suggestions?
Hi Laura – I bought some at Hobby Lobby today. They are in the “craft” department. I was told they carry them year around. I was shocked to find them today. Good luck in your quest to locate them. Shari
Thanks for letting us know, Shari! (Hobby Lobby is so awesome :D)
Love this idea! Can hardly wait to make them. Thanks, Shari
Thanks Shari :)