I have a Christmas decorating dream of actually being able to fill the apartment with Christmas decorations. I also have a Christmas Dream of my apartment being like on of those tents in Harry Potter that's huge on the inside even though it's tiny on the outside...so my dreams may be wishful thinking.
I have a shot at getting more Christmas decorations, though, and I've been on Pinterest quite a bit these last several weeks scouring the tutorials for items that I could make. I haven't been able to write much either over the last several days because of computer issues, so I had extra time to consider my options.
My current desire is to fill one of the bowls I got as a wedding present with Christmas ornaments. Mike and I can't use half the decorations we have right now on the tree because they are breakable and we have a dog with a bad habit of tree chewing. This could be a good method of displaying some of those ornaments, a bowl I don't normally get to display, and an opportunity to try my hand at making some new ornaments.
I found a picture on Pinterest of an ornament made by attaching lace to an ornament and then painting over the lace using a sponge. The tutorial was in Spanish, so I just glanced at the Pinterest image to get some ideas and then gathered together my own supplies, all of which I already owned. I had just made a sweater that used lace, and had scraps from that I could use, and craft ornaments from another project. I already had all the materials, so I had to try it!
I soon realized it wasn't going to go quite as planned, and it wasn't quite so simple as the tutorial pictures made it look...
These are the materials needed for this project: paint, craft orament, decoupage glue (supposedly you can make your own. I'll be trying this later), lace, paintbrushes or sponge, glue gun and ribbon.
I always have some kind of paint and brushes on hand, because I draw and paint. I decided to use brushes instead of a sponge, because I have brushes and do not have a sponge good for crafts.
My note ahead to you now- seriously consider getting that sponge if you don't have it. I struggled with the paintbrush.
Alright, here we go! Let's see how this turned out.
Looks promising so far, right? The goal is to use color to highlight the lace details later. d
I always have some kind of paint and brushes on hand, because I draw and paint. I decided to use brushes instead of a sponge, because I have brushes and do not have a sponge good for crafts.
My note ahead to you now- seriously consider getting that sponge if you don't have it. I struggled with the paintbrush.
Alright, here we go! Let's see how this turned out.
Step One: Paint Craft Ornament your base color (white for me).
I use my paint to paint the whole ornament white. That is all. Simple. Then let it dry.
Step 2: Glue on lace pieces
I pull the fabric scraps from sweater project and cut out the little details. I then attach the lace details the the painted ornament using decoupage glue.
Step Three: Paint ornament with color
This is where things start to go wrong. As I said before, I don't have spongers that are good for crafts or painting, but I do have an abundance of paint brushes. I grabbed the one that was the least nice (it was going to be near glue, after all...by the way, it's the same one pictured above with the glue). I figured if I was careful I could achieve a similar effect with a brush.
I thought about picking blue paint, for a snowy effect, but realized that I didn't have any blue ribbons or details to go with a blue ornament. I had an overabundance of red items, so I chose red instead. This may have been mistake #1.
I mixed my paint with water and put a light red wash over most of the ornament, but I found quickly that the lace collected gobs of paint without showing any details. The ornament was starting to look like red blobs surrounded by splotchy light red patches.
This is not an attractive look. Nothing like what Pinterest showed me.
I don't have pictures of this phase to show you, because I was in such a frantic rush to fix it. I got out more water and watered down what I could to remove the excess paint and try to distribute it better. I wanted the lace details to show!
I solved the first problem, and got more color onto the ornament that looked less splotchy, but I still had no details showing. I paused and let everything dry, and then got out a new bit of paint.
This time I did not add water, and put a tiny bit of red paint with no water on the edge of my slightly damp brush. I used this to brush specifically around the lace details. I ended up having to highlight those details one little piece at a time by hand.
It didn't take that long to do, but it wasn't near so simple as just blotting over the whole ornament with a sponge. I'm not certain now that a sponge would be so simple as it claimed to be.
See those red lines? They are from the lace, but I had to use my brush to highlight each one. At this point, I'm uncertain if this is going to be worth keeping.
NOTE:
I think the sponge would have been easier to work with because it would have provided a much nicer, even texture on the whole ornament, but I think I would still have had to use the brush to get the details highlighted on the lace.Step 4: Finish the ornament
My decoupage glue is also a finishing coat, so I got it out in hopes that a nice glossy finish would make the work look somewhat complete. I also got out my red ribbon set and plugged in the glue gun.
The problems continued here. I turned the decoupage glue over to empty it, and it wouldn't come out of the jar. When it did come out, it all came out in a great rushing glob, all at once, and straight onto the place mat.
To add insult to injury, as I scrambled to get the place mat to the sink to wash before the glue dried in it, King Edmund decided that he was entitled to pull my ribbon off the table and run away with it...
I am now scrambling to catch a dog running around the apartment with all of my ribbon and wash a place mat covered in glue before it dries.
When I do manage to catch Eddie and wash the place mat, adding that final coat is easy. But it takes me an additional several minutes and a nice dose of frustration to get there!
This layer had to dry, so I waited several hours and then plugged in the glue gun to add on a ribbon around the top.
Project Complete!
Conclusion
I'm still not certain what I think of this one. It did not turn out as neatly as the tutorial depicted. That may have been my fault for not using the sponge, but I'm still not convinced that the lace would have shown up properly even with a sponge. I also think I should have gone with blue paint. I have more lace and more craft ornaments, so I may try one more. I need to get to Christmas gifts too, though.
Difficulty level: Easy (I do have experience painting, but I don't think that helped me)
Effort level: low
Cost: $0
Time Spent: I'm actually not sure, what with all the delays. I think it was maybe 1-1.5 hours, and then drying time.
Was it worthwhile: I'm still undecided.
I don't know if I like how it turned out, but I may like another version better. Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas to improve it!
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