Sunday, December 9, 2012

Christmas Craft Challenge - Day 9

AKA.... yay I'm up to date!!!

Day 9 - Paper & Glitter Baubles...

These were another Pinterest find. To make matters even better... I knew I had some leftover polystyrene balls from last Christmas and patterned paper certainly wasn't going to be an issue, nor was glitter so these were definitely on this year's crafting list.

The good news is these are relatively easy to make... the bad news is you need to be patient when making them. You need to allow drying time... you can not resort to the trusty heat tool to speed things up!!!

I found the polystyrene balls, picked out some paper, cut some jute and pulled out some glitter paint (for the next day).

First I tied the jute I would hang the ornaments with and pushed a bead pin through the middle to push into the polystyrene ball. I put a small blob of super-grip glue where I wanted to add the string then pushed the pin into the middle of the glue blob. I didn't want the string coming off while the ornament was hanging from the Christmas tree!!

For the first one I tried I cut my paper into 1" strips... then cut these into 2" lengths and then after trying to glue the first strip on I cut the rest into 1" squares. These proved to be still a little difficult to glue in place (square onto a round object do not easily go) but I persisted. Glue underneath, and glue on top seemed to be the magic trick to making it all work.

For the other three baubles, I punched out a whole lot of 1" circles out of my patterned paper. The circles were definitely much easier to glue in place. When the first coat over the top was dry (or nearly dryish) I added a second coat of glue then left them all overnight to dry completely. 

The next day (after a good night's sleep on my part) I coated the baubles in glitter paint. Over the red bauble I used a pink paint base, the other three all had a clear paint base. Again once the first coat was dry, I added a second coat to two of the three clear painted baubles. And finally on one of the baubles, I then added some strips of rhinestones to add a bit of bling. The rest all stayed plain though you could add anything you liked to decorate them more.

Although these took 2 days including drying time, they were still relatively easy to make, if somewhat mucky... I definitely ended up with glue covered fingers.

Light beige and white patterned paper with one coat of clear paint with crystalline glitter. This was a little difficult to stick down as it was the thickest paper. Though it wasn't a very heavy weight paper, it did prove that the lighter the weight of paper, the better it stuck to the polystyrene ball.
Green and white plaid paper with two coats of clear paint with crystalline glitter. Finished with strips of green and clear rhinestones. 
This was the red patterned paper which I cut into 1" squares. I coated this with one coat of bright pink paint with pink glitter. 
White patterned paper with black music print. Coated with two coats of clear paint with crystalline glitter.

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