Leaf Ornaments

I had collected leaves for a few weeks planning to make some leaf ornaments.  After pressing them for several days in some phone books, it was time to spray paint.  I spread them out on some garbage bags on my balcony.

Then I readied the spray paint and sparkles.  This is another ornament that requires quickly sprinkling sparkles onto wet spray paint.

It seemed to work best in batches again, so I would spray about 4 of the leaves, sprinkle the sparkles then move them to a clean, or dry spot so it wouldn't stick to the wet spray.

Let it dry, before flipping over and doing the other side. Twenty minutes is plenty of time

The finished leaf looks great. I brought them inside to dry overnight and the next morning they were ready to be tied with ribbon and hung on the tree.

 

Present Ornament

Some of my favourite ornaments when I was a kid were simple wrapped blocks of wood.  My dad is a carpenter and he'd give us some left over scraps to wrap and put on the tree.  I wanted to recreate those but the only thing I could find was Styrofoam.  So I cut them up into 2" blocks

 This whole block made 12! The wrapping paper should be big enough to wrap the block so for these guys I guy rectangles slightly larger than 6 x 8".  Spread white glue on the back of the paper and quickly wrap the present.

 

The sides will probably need slightly more glue to stick.  Once it's finished, let it sit until the glue is dry.  These took overnight before they were completely dry.  Then, all you have to do is wrap it in some ribbon and make a loop for the tree.

Here's the difference between using the glue on the paper and just wrapping the present with a bit of tape.  On the left, it's glued and the edges are clearly defined.  On the right, it's taped and the paper is loose and it doesn't look as neat.  I prefer the glued one even if it is a bit messier.

The finished ornament

Pine cone Ornaments

My husband and I went out on a hike a few weeks ago, well I really went on a pine cone expedition.  I found a lot of great pine cones and immediately knew i wanted to make ornaments with them.

I left them outside to make sure there weren't any bugs I'd be bringing into the apartment .  A few days later I headed to the balcony with gold spray paint, sparkles and some garbage bags.

I put the pinecones on the garbage bags and got the spray and sparkles ready.  After spraying one side of the pinecones, I quickly sprinkled the sparkles while the paint was still wet.  It's a good idea to do them in batches of 4 - 6 cones at a time.  They sat out in the sun for probably 20 minutes before I flipped them and sprayed the other side.  

I let them sit for a few hours until completely dry then brought them inside to complete the ornament process.

The next day, I gathered my glue gun, some ribbon and some small christmas bows.  Cut about 6-8" of ribbon, this will be the loop the ornament hangs from so make it longer or shorter depending on what you want.  Make a loop and tie a bow with the two ends.  Take the paper off the sticky part of the ribbon and make sure the glue gun is nice and hot.

When you put the hot glue on, you need to work fast and put the center of the ribbon bottom on top of the pine cone and immediately top with the bow.  Make sure you use a lot of glue.

Let them dry overnight and they're ready to hang in the morning!