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Have a ball
Anyone can give ornaments a personal touch
By Jane Asper
Special to the Denver Rocky Mountain News
Unpacking your boxes of ornaments and rediscovering your favorite ones is half the fun of decorating Christmas trees.
Even if you are not usually the crafty type, why not let this be the year you create handmade ornaments for everyone on your list? Even the most artistically challenged family members will find it easy to create professional-looking ornaments when following the directions below.
To make these ornaments, you will use adhesive letters available at an art supply store, such as Meininger's or Guiry's. The letters come on a sheet and originally were designed for advertising and sign-making. Using these letters is the secret to creating simple, yet elegant, ornaments.
"Joy" is a word that evokes the holiday spirit, and the perfectly round letter "o" in the middle of the word complements the spherical shape of the ornament in the photo. But the ornaments you create can say whatever you wish. You could make one that says "ho ho ho" all the way around. Personalize ornaments by spelling someone's name. If the recipient's name is long, a monogram will suffice.
As a final nod to millennium mania, use adhesive numbers to put the year on the ornament. Forget the debate over when the millenium begins: this is Christmas 2000, no matter what.
Or use larger adhesive letters, and place one letter of a chosen word on each of several ornaments, so that a box full spells out your greeting. As a gift, what a nice presentation this makes.
When choosing the glass ornaments used as the basis for your creativity, keep in mind that the color of the ornament will be the color of your letters. For the best contrast, use dark colors of glitter on light-color ornaments, or pastel or metallic glitter on dark-color ornaments.
You also can use the same technique and use adhesive Cheerio-shaped notebook reinforcements to make an ornament covered in circles. Use small round self-stick labels to make a polka-dot ornament or squares or strips of masking tape to create other designs.
When the ornaments are finished and dried, pack each one in a cellophane bag and tie the top with a ribbon. If you have used a person's name, use the packaged ornament as a special tag on a larger gift or as a place card at Christmas dinner.
Perhaps your fine ornaments someday will be the ones someone fondly discovers when he or she opens a box of ornaments on Christmas, rediscovering their childhood, and you.
Materials:
Glass ball with 21/2-inch to 3-inch diameter
Adhesive lowercase letters, ©-inch to 1-inch high
Micro-glitter in soft pastel color, or as desired
Finished size: 21/2-inch diameter
You will also need:
glass cleaner
paper towels
plastic straw
masking tape
tweezers
teaspoon
white glue
watercolor paintbrush
X-Acto knife
sheet of plain paper
drinking glass
Directions:
1) Prepare the ornament. Carefully remove the top cap from the ball by pinching the wire loop together with your fingers; ease the wire prongs out of the neck of the ball and set the cap aside. Clean the ball with glass cleaner and paper towels. To secure the "handle," insert the straw into the neck opening and tape around the straw and the neck of the ball.
2) Apply the letters: use tweezers to peel off single letters j, o, and y from the paper backing. Press the letters down in a row around the circumference of the ball. Smooth the edges of each letter with the bowl side of a spoon until they are well adhered.
3) Apply the glitter. Hold the ball "handle" and use a paintbrush to coat the surface of the ball with an -inch layer of glue, coming up to the edges of the letters, but not over them. Hold the ball over a sheet of paper and sprinkle it with glitter, rotating the ball until its entire surface is covered. Stand the ornament upright in a drinking glass by its straw and allow the glue to dry overnight; funnel the glitter back into the container.
4) Remove the letters. Use the tip of the knife to carefully lift up the edge of a letter, then slowly peel it off. Repeat the process for all letters; if a letter begins to remove the adjacent glitter coating, lay the letter back down and use the knife to cut along the edge of the letter. Peel and lift off the letter.
5) Replace the cap, being careful to squeeze the wire prongs together to ease them into the ball without breaking the neck.
Jane Asper is a Denver artist and freelance writer.
December 10, 2000
