I have a Pinterest/Creativity/Creating problem.

It's true.  I'll admit it.  I spend most of the day at work on Pinterest when I am on an unclass machine.  The guys like it when I'm scrolling down and they see the half naked girls with the workout suggestions.  Some ask me if I'm planning a wedding (no).  Usually I'm perusing for recipes, home decorating ideas, and funny quotes/pics.  I try not to do too much investigating of things that I would love to have, but will probably never have in this life, ever.  It's just for the best.

Pinterest is one of those websites that you can sit on for hours and get soooo many great ideas.. and then never do any of them.  Every now and then you'll see things like this:

It's true.

#10.

So my goal each week, no matter how many hours I spend on the website... I try to create something I've found a few times each week.  Usually, its dinner ideas.  But since its Christmas, many people have pinned their decorating suggestions.

I decided to make my own Christmas ornaments.  The idea came from here.  She kept referring to the glass ornaments are "ornies," never used upper case letters, and overused the "..." instead of using proper punctuation/periods to finish sentences, all which drove me crazy.  I told myself maybe she was British/foreign (sometimes they talk different, right?), but apparently she is from WV, which I'm sure is also a logical explanation.  Yes, I know I have a run-on sentence problem, thank you.

Ingredients:
-clear glass ornaments (as many as you want to decorate.  I got mine from Michael's on sale for under $5 for 4/6 size depending)
-Pledge floor cleaner WITH the "future shine/floor finish" (the inspriation blog said with the blue cap.. all the pledge bottles of cleaner had blue caps, and with no good photo of her required items, I was standing in front of floor cleaners for an awkwardly long time trying to figure out which one was the "right" one.  If you can't tell, open the bottle and check and see which one is sticky after you put a dab on your finger.)
-glitter <3

optional ingredients:
-spiked hot chocolate
-christmas jams
 
Directions:
-Remove the tops of all the ornaments.  Don't be foolish like me and just pull them out as fast as possible, I definitely got popped a few good times on my fingers by the wires, ouch.
-Make sure the ornaments are clean.  I wiped mine off with my hands.  Good enough.
-Squirt some Pledge into the ornament (Hint: make sure the blue cap is on).  Doesn't matter how much.  I usually did about 1/4-1/2 full because I'm lazy and slightly messy.
-Slowly swish the Pledge around in your ornament, or roll the ornament around.  The point of this exercise is to get the inside coated with the Pledge so the glitter sticks.
-Pour the excess Pledge back into the bottle.  (Hint: unscrew the cap, Hint 2: Time is a tickin').
-If there are any bubbles around the ornament opening, take a q-tip and gently pop them/wipe them away.
-Pour glitter into ornament, LOTS of glitter.  The point of using lots is to ensure the entire inside is covered before the Pledge dries, unless you want the half glittered look, which I did and liked..  (Hint: using a funnel/piece of rolled up paper/ziplock bag with a corner cut off will help minimize mess.  You might also find with glitter, mess cannot be minimized.)
-Roll ornament around to spread glitter/put finger over opening and shake violently to spread glitter.
-When the inside of the ornament is covered to your liking/standards, pour the excess glitter back into its container.
-Wait a while-ish for the ornaments to dry/set, then place the toppers back inside.  It's ok if the wire scrapes some of the glitter off because the topper should cover it.
-Voila! glittery ornament.

Comments:
-The Pledge can be very messy/sticky with small ornaments and/or if you are messy/clumsy like me.  Make sure you aren't doing this project on any surfaces that you don't want to have floor finish on (thus my very awesome tablecloth).  When I was pouring my Pledge in the ornaments, I often had to rinse off the outside while I was swishing it around because I wouldn't get it all in the hole (there was no way to make that sound not dirty..).  I would just rinse the ornament off with water and dry it off then return to the table to finish the steps..

This is what happened:

Craft tables should always be very messy.  That means work is in progress.

Pledge added, swishing around.

Finished products.  YAY SPARKLES!

My other ornament creation idea was to make "book ornaments."  Originally, I was going to cut up pages of books/music and roll them up and toss into the ornament.  I decided that the best way to see the words would be to glue the pages to the outside of the ornament instead, so I went with that method.  The best part about crafting is that you can make it up as you go!  Weeee!

Ingredients:
-books/music you are willing to rip up.  I went to a thrift store and picked up Pride and Prejudice, the complete collection of William Shakespeare, and a book on etiquette.  They were $1 each, I was willing to part with them.  I'm sure print outs would work just as well, but I didn't think of that before right now (as my printer is currently in no-owner-mans-land, aka customs).
-glass ornament
-glue/mod podge.  I bought mod podge because everyone says to use it.  I'm not that impressed with it.  I'm pretty sure I could do the exact same thing with some generic school glue.  I have seen recipes on Pinterest to make your own Mod Podge, so maybe its not exactly the same.. but still $4 for a little bottle?

Directions:
-pop the tops off the ornaments
-make sure ornaments are clean
-take pages from book/whatever you want to put on your ornament, rip into manageable sizes to not have too many wrinkles when you spread it flat onto the ornament.
-spread some glue on ornament
-place small paper piece onto glue covered area
-spread glue over paper you'd placed down and over area you want to add paper to next
-keep going until ornament is covered
-when ornament is fully covered with paper, spread with another layer of glue.
-it was also suggested somewhere that you spray some acrylic finish or your choice of finish on these suckers when they are completely dry.

Comments:
-glue is messy and sticky.  Who knew.  When it would start to dry on my fingers, it sometimes would rip off pieces of the glued pages if my fingers were stuck to them.  Oops.
-To hold the ornament (other than for the purposes of this photo) I generally just stuck my pinky/ring finger into the opening and held it.  You can engineer your own way if you are not graced with anorexic midget fingers (no offense to anorexic midgets).

This is my etiquette ornament.  It talks about gift giving at Christmas.  I made sure that the word Christmas was sticking out as often as possible.  That's festive, right?

 So what to do with all these ornaments when you don't have a tree?!?!?!

Well, I, again, found inspiration on Pinterest.

This was the foundation for my idea:

I can hang things!  Easy!

Easy, not so much.  While I have an empty frame for another crafty creation for a later date, I ran out of ribbon.  Oops.  I could have just went out and bought more, but I'm le lazy.  Also, I wasn't sure how I was going to hang the frame in the window.

So I went the ghetto route.  I bought a tension rod from Wal-Mart.  $5.  I got the shortest one because my window is only a single window wide (that makes sense in my head, see photos for explaination).  After several minutes of figuring out how to use the tension rod (they aren't the same now as they were 3-5 years ago, just so you know), I set it to the length it needed to be.  I had purchased some already decorated ornaments, so I used those.  I tied a variously lengthed piece of ribbon to the ornament tip, then, I ghetto-ly taped them to the rod.  When the rod was full, I hung it in the window.  :)  YAY CHRISTMAS!

Work in progress.  The 2 large ornaments are in my chose living room decor colors.  I couldn't resist.

And finished product!
I made a few of these, including the gold one, the blue/silver one in the middle, and the clear one with stuff in the bottom (those are red/gold/green bells).

And a bad photo from the outside.  I made sure to roll the tension bar around so my neighbors don't see the ghettoness that is the ribbons taped to the bar.  So far only one ornament has fallen, which I think is very impressive.  I have duct tape on standby, just in case.

The other super easy idea that I found was to pour epsom salt into the empty ornaments as it looks like snow.  I really liked this idea, but the salt does start to get heavy, so I didn't put these on the bar.  I'm also thinking that the salt could have worked as a glitter replacement.  I did try to glue the salt to the outside (using Mod Podge) but the salt keeps flaking off, so I consider it a fail.

Epsom salt can be found in the health/beauty section of Wal-Mart/other stores that haven't monopolized cheap prices with large selection.  It's also cheap, which is why I was willing to experiment with it.

Obviously, all my ornaments aren't hanging in the window.  I got a little carried away with the ornament decorating/purchasing.  I <3 Christmas, what can I say?  My idea for displaying the rest of the ornaments is to purchase a glass bowl (prob from a thrift store if I can find one) and just lay them in the bowl.  That's festive enough for me!


YAY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Is that a 1 gallon Mason Jar you spy?  Why yes, yes it is.  Even though I got 2 containers, I underestimated the size of the big balls, so I still had 2 that wouldn't fit.  Oh well, hello remaining ribbon.  I tied them together and now they are ball mates.  Oh, I went there.  :)