Carol's Special Ornament Tutorial

At my downline meeting this weekend we had a special guest, Carol (waving hi with a hug), and she showed us how to make these very special ornaments, and she is going to be doing a class on them at her home on November 7 (I have to find out the time), if you would like to attend (if you live in the Gilbert, AZ area) let me know and I can give you Carol's information.

So this won't be a video tutorial, it will just be some photos from my meeting...

You will need:

Glass ball ornament, heat gun, needle nose pliers, towel, irridescent ice embossing powder, a window sheet with your image stamped and colored, or a photo that is on a special kind of window sheet, scissors, ribbon to decorate.

Take the metal top thingie off the ornament.  Be careful cause sometimes the glass ornament can be sharp.  Blow hot air into the glass ball (don't put your mouth on it in case the glass is sharp).  This will put moisture inside the ball.

Using a spoon add some irridescent ice embossing powder, don't add tons, you can always add more, but you CAN NOT take it away.

Tap the ball gently on the sides and more it around so that you spread the embossing powder around inside and it sticks to the moisture that you blew inside.

Here you can see the embossing powder inside, notice it is just lightly in there, not too much, you want to be able to see your photo or stamped image through it when you are done.

Carefully hold the glass ball with the needle nose pliers.

Using the heat gun heat the embossing powder till it goes to clear and looks like ice.  I would wear eye protection.  Carol says that none of the ornaments have broken but I guess there is always that odd chance. So I would not let a child do this project unsupervised.

Make a little "nest" ahead of time and lay the hot embossed ball on top of it to cool.  It's hot so be careful.

Carol forgot her window sheets that were ready to insert so I don't have pictures of that step.  But basically you will cut your window sheet in a circle so it will fit the size of the ornament.  Carefully roll the window sheet into a tube so that you can insert it into the ornament hole.  It will open up inside. Look how sweet the dog one is.  I am going to go to class and make an ornament with Toby inside, and I can add pictures of that last step later after class.

I hope this makes sense to you, and just think of the cool ornaments you could make.  Baby's first Christmas, Our First Christmas Together, etc.

Have a great Tuesday and thanks for stopping in!