peacock feathers inside 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:

pine branches and pinecones inside clear glass bulb

 Here’s a simpler version, but equally gorgeous (I think this might be a spring of rosemary):

pine needles inside glass ball ornament

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:

holly and letter blocks inside clear glass ornament

An ornament filled with pearls… very elegant.

clear glass ornament filled with pearls

You could even fill an ornament with cheap dollar store beaded necklaces!

clear glass ornament filled with bead necklaces

Or mini gift bows! So cute.

gift bows in clear glass ornaments

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?

kids christmas list inside glass ornament

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:

paper tree with snow in clear glass ornament

A tiny bottle brush tree sitting in snow:.

bottle brush tree in clear glass ornament

A snow filled ornament, with a simple piece of ribbon wrapped around the outside:

grosgrain ribbon around clear ornament filled with faux snow

These are adorable. Just some snow, easy painted face, and a baby sock for a hat:

clear glass snowman ornaments

I hope you can stand all this cuteness, ’cause here’s another one. A melted snowman inside the ornament. Oh. Em. Goodness….

melted snowman in clear glass ornament

How about rolling up a bunch of strips of paper? (or ribbon…?)

scrap paper filled ornament

Solid red paper strips made into a Santa belly ornament:

santa belly Christmas ornaments

I have seen paper strips cut from books inside glass ornaments before, but this is different; the book pages are punched into snowflake shapes:

book page confetti inside clear glass ornament

I would have never thought rolls of yarn and rope would look so great in an ornament:

yarn and rope filled ornaments

How about filling an ornament with jingle bells? So festive.

jingle bell filled clear glass ornament

I also found a few ideas for great wedding keepsakes. This one is filled with dried petals from a bridal bouquet:

wedding bouquet petals inside clear glass ornament

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…)

wedding invitation inside clear ornament

Prepare to be wowed. Peacock feathers inside glass ornaments, and hung in a cluster together. Simply STUNNING.

peacock feathers inside clear glass ornaments

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:

seashell and sand in clear glass ornament

Fill an ornament with holly berries:

holly berries in clear glass ornament

Or if you’re a Barbie fanatic like me, fill an ornament with Barbie shoes!

barbie shoes inside clear glass ornament

Filled with popcorn:

clear glass ornament filled with popcorn

Or, coat the inside of the ornaments with glitter:

glitter inside clear glass ornaments

Have you ever crafted with clear glass ornaments? I’d love to hear the ideas you’ve come up with!

167 Comments

  1. Bronson Tyler on December 11, 2012 at 12:52 am

    Wow, Those are amazing! I think my favorite is the Santa Clause one.

    • ornamentgirl on December 11, 2012 at 1:39 am

      I love it too! It’s so clever. :)

    • gail on November 15, 2013 at 12:11 am

      great ideas !!

  2. mary emigh on December 12, 2012 at 3:00 am

    I love Christmas too!!! a new idea is always welcomed… very pretty,,,,

  3. Melissa W on December 12, 2012 at 5:05 am

    Great, gorgeous and cute ideas! Thanks for sharing :)
    Merry Christmas

    • ornamentgirl on December 17, 2012 at 10:13 pm

      Thanks, Melissa, and Merry Christmas to you, too!

  4. Susan M on December 16, 2012 at 2:17 am

    Wow! These are great! Thanks for sharing them. I wish I’d found your site before the holidays got so busy.

  5. Peggy on December 17, 2012 at 5:34 am

    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!!!

  6. Margie stephenson on December 17, 2012 at 7:45 am

    Please tell me how to get the fake snow into the ball! This is impossible!!!

    • ornamentgirl on December 17, 2012 at 10:09 pm

      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!

      • kelly smith on October 16, 2013 at 8:18 am

        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!

        • Anonymous on November 29, 2013 at 3:33 am

          you can use hairspray too, simple

  7. Susan on December 17, 2012 at 9:17 am

    Since discovering your blog, I’ve decided that my daughter and I will make a Christmas ornament a month with her friends.

    • ornamentgirl on December 17, 2012 at 10:10 pm

      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! :)

  8. LindaG on December 17, 2012 at 11:33 pm

    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-

  9. Amber on December 19, 2012 at 10:41 am

    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

  10. Mary on December 20, 2012 at 7:17 am

    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.

  11. Heather Boone on December 22, 2012 at 10:40 pm

    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

  12. Emily on December 25, 2012 at 6:59 am

    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!

  13. Andrea on December 25, 2012 at 7:30 am

    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

    • Jackie on March 9, 2014 at 5:46 am

      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

  14. Laura Albano on April 6, 2013 at 8:59 am

    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?

    • Shari Sinclair on May 21, 2013 at 8:12 am

      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

      • ornamentgirl on May 22, 2013 at 9:25 pm

        Thanks for letting us know, Shari! (Hobby Lobby is so awesome :D)

  15. Shari Sinclair on May 21, 2013 at 8:10 am

    Love this idea! Can hardly wait to make them. Thanks, Shari