Third Day of Christmas: Superhero Ornaments

Recently I was browsing the internet for ideas for homemade Christmas ornaments and found a tutorial for making superhero ornaments.  Now, if you think “Meh, superheroes aren’t my thing, this post isn’t for me.”  Stop right there.  These certainly wouldn’t have to be superhero ornaments – as you’ll see, only two of mine actually are.  The idea is so simple, and yet, I never would have come up with it on my own.

To check out the source I used as inspiration, check out “Happy Looks GoodOn You”.

The supplies you need are pretty basic:

·         Access to Google images (or I suppose stickers would work) and a colour printer

·         Clear ornaments (I used plastic because they were for kids but glass would work too)

·         Acrylic paint

·         A pair of scissors or a knife to cut the decals

·         Mod Podge

·         Something on which to let them dry (the tutorial suggested empty toilet paper rolls but in half, I used newspaper and a couple blocks of wood)

·         A small paintbrush or sponge

 I began by finding the images I wanted online and then printed them.  Then I removed the toppers from the ornaments and poured some paint inside.  To get the paint to cover the entire thing, you’ll need to roll them around, or shake them if your paint is as stubborn as mine was (cover the top so that paint isn’t flying everywhere).  Some colours worked better for some reason.  The red and black worked far better than the blues.  And the Martha Stewart blue with the sparkles was the least successful (sorry, Martha).

Once I had the paint covering the inside completely I carefully set the ornaments upside-down between the two blocks of wood (newspaper underneath) to allow the excess paint to run out.  I let them sit like that for a couple of hours.  The sparkly one could have been left overnight.

 While the paint was drying, I cut out my images.  For the more detailed pictures I actually used an “exacto” knife and a cutting mat so that I could include all the details.

Once the paint seemed dry and there were puddles under the ornaments on the paper, I podged the back of each image and stuck them onto the balls.  After giving them some time to dry, I podged over top as well so that they’d stay in place and would be difficult to pick off.  Thanks to hubby for modeling the process for the picture:

I let them sit (upside down just in case) until the podge was dry, and then replaced the toppers.  I didn’t super glue the topers in place, but I think if I were doing it again, I would have.  I’m pretty pleased with the final result, and they seemed to be a hit with the kids!

Happy crafting!

~ Shannon