I bought clear Christmas balls, to do a project with my daughter.
And it did not play out exactly as planned. So, I will share that with you all here in “preparing for Christmas” land.
Painted Christmas Balls
Supplies
- glass balls
- glitter gel (or not)
- small marble or metal BB (or not)
I did these with my kid, who is almost 5 years old.
I pulled the”cap” off the top and then I let her pour glitter glue gel stuff in the balls.
The way the gel came out of the tubes, to be honest, it looked like little poop piles. And the glitter didn’t sparkle quite enough to distract from the “poop” look of it.
So I went and got a little metal BB/small marble.
I carefully dropped/rolled that in through the neck, and then I slowly turned the ball over and over, and the piles spread to stripes.
That was very satisfying. (The gel did not move around on its own.)
I very very gently shook one of the balls to move the BB in the gel glue, and it actually broke the glass and fell out. !! It startled me and, at that point, I was holding this glass ball with a sharp hole in it and tiny shards covered in glitter were on the floor.
Aaaak.
I will try to rethink it. Maybe nail polish? That rolls on its own and I don’t have to have a ball to influence it.
But then, these will not be a project that I will claim is hers. I don’t even want her to hold them and have an accident.
Maybe I will research plastic globe ornaments and try it with those. I have been looking for them, but I have not seen them in person yet.
Have you done ornaments with kids? Show us how they went!
© 2005 – 2013 Kathy Lewinski & Susan Cornish
Susi,
I will working on this project next week. Maybe if you add some gel medium or white glue to the mix the poop glitter might flow a little bit better. I will be using acrylic paint, mica powders, and loose glitter for my project next week–all of which are not kid friendly. I wonder if you add gel medium and the poop glitter in a dixie cup to mix and then pour it into the ornament if this might help. Just a suggestion.
Also, for future reference, Michaels and Amazon have clear acrylic ornaments for sale but I don’t think that this would help you right now. My Michaels store is out of them in Manhattan.
I was thinking glitter paint, maybe watered down a bit, would flow nicely. I think cheap nail polish might be good too, but had to clean if it spills.
try making pledge christmas ornaments–easy and fun
all over the internet, we followed the instructions from this website:
http://theornamentgirl.com/blog/being-crafty/how-to-make-glitter-christmas-ornaments-diy/
the bottle of pledge looks different now, but you can find it in any grocery store
OH!Shan! Those are beautiful. (Glitter!!!!) I will look for the plastic balls!!! Thank you for sharing!!
I have read that you can use liquid floor wax to coat the inside of the ball and then shake in some glitter. It is on my ‘too try’ list.
Jan,
I actually read the same thing. I hear it works on plastic and glass balls too.