How to make glitter Christmas ornaments | DIY

(You can download a free PDF file of this tutorial…just click HERE)

 UPDATES:

1. I tried these with plastic bulbs, and they look great! Read about it HERE.
2. The Pledge product I used in this project is now called: Pledge floor care multi-surface finish. One of our lovely readers contacted Pledge and found out that this is the same exact product…she didn’t leave her name, but I sincerely thank her for clearing this up for us!

I’ve had lots of people asking me how I made my glitter birthstone ornaments, so I thought doing a tutorial would be a good idea. This would also be a GREAT project to do with kids, for an awesome handmade Christmas gift idea, because they are so quick and easy.

And the best part? The glitter is inside the glass ball, so you can admire them all you want without becoming sparkly head to toe yourself.

Unless you want to be sparkly head to toe, and in that case, I can’t help you. At least not in this blog post.

You will need:

• clear glass ornaments (Joann’s and Michael’s carry them during the Christmas season, or you can get them online right HERE).
• glitter (this is my favorite glitter).
• okay, are you ready for this one? floor wax. (sounds weird, yes, but this is the amazing secret ingredient.)

First, make sure you start with a clean ornament. I use rubbing alcohol to clean them, and I explain how and why in a previous blog post I wrote about how to make these glass Easter ornaments.

Now, about the floor cleaner…I read about this idea more than a year ago when I was reading a crafting forum somewhere, and I completely dismissed it. I had visions of bald-headed men and toxic looking yellow Lysol-like stuff, and decided that whoever had had this idea must have been a little cuckoo. Then one day I was shopping in the cleaning products section of the black hole of doom, oops I mean Walmart, and I saw this:

I immediately realized that this was exactly what that person must have been talking about, so I decided to try it out…and I am so glad I did, because it works a-MAAAzing.

(ps. The look of the bottle has changed… you can see what it looks like now, right HERE.)

So pour a little bit into the ornament, and swirl it around. I don’t shake it, because then it gets kind of bubbly.

Then pour the excess back into the bottle. This stuff is a little bit expensive, but it goes a long way. In fact, this bottle is the only bottle I’ve bought…and look how little I’ve used. I might even use it to clean my floors one day.

Now pour in your glitter and swirl it around the same way as you did with the floor cleaner. You could shake it, but for some unexplainable reason, I don’t like to…I like to swirl it all nice and evenly around the glass. (I guess I’m weird.)

And voila!

oops, sorry. You wanted to see the ornament…

Let it dry for a little while before putting the cap back on…I always take the little wire out of the cap, and put the cap on first (put a little glue around the inside of the cap for security):

and then stick the wire back in…this will keep it from scratching off the glitter on the way in.

All done!

But wait!

Look at what a few little scrapbook stickers and some rhinestones can do…

There are endless ways you could dress these up…any other ideas?

UPDATES: