The Cliff Notes Version:
1. Glass or plastic makes no difference.
2. Use Polycrylic to be safe. Others use Mop & Glow because it's cheap, but that may not hold up - Polycrylic is much more likely to last.
3. Ultra fine glitter works best. White always looks thinner. Brand does not matter.
4. Make your design about an inch smaller than the ornament, roughly
Step One -
I have 5 kinds of ornaments here. White opalescent and white glitter, from Michaels. Glass & plastic "flat" ornaments, also from Michaels. And small round ornaments, 2 for $1 at the Dollar Tree. There was no difference at all in how the glitter worked in any of these - it was all pretty easy and went great, in every type I've tried. Glass or plastic made no difference at all. I like the flat "disc" ornaments better than the round ones, because it's so much easier to apply the vinyl - but the round ones are cheaper.
The glitter I used is Martha Stewart - its been in my craft closet for the last few years. I had bought it on clearance and have never used it. It's perfect for this. From what I have read, super fine glitters work best, and white is always thinner than all the other colors. After my first couple of batches of ornaments, I bought a few more colors. Michaels has the recollections brand that is nice, but my favorite is the Nicoles Basics ultra fine. It doesn't "work" any differently, but there are some really gorgeous colors available.
I'm using Minwaxc Polycrylic Water Based Protective Finishes, 1/2 Pintin clear gloss. $8.97 at Wal-mart, 9.87 on amazon. Others have used mop and glow, and hairspray, successfully, but I've read they do not always hold up well in the heat - such as over the summer in hot attics. Others will swear that is all they use and they hold up just fine. I'll do an experiment with all three methods and let them in the attic for a year to see how they hold up - but to be safe with this years ornaments, I paid for the Polycrylic.
A year or so ago I bought these white "condiment" bottles at sams club. It was less than $2 for 6 of them. I needed one for french fry vinegar... so there were 5 empty ones in the pantry. I've moved them to the craft cabinet. I used one for the polycrylic here - it made is super easy to pour it into the ornaments. If I was doing a bunch of ornaments in one color of glitter, I would have used it to apply the glitter too,.
Instead, I used the little green funnel. This was in my kitchen, and I don't know why. I bought it at the kitchen store. It worked great for the glitter, and it didn't matter if there was a tiny bit of "leftover glitter" clinging to the inside when I moved to the next color.
Pour a the polycrylic in the ornament, swirl, then place upside down on the top of the polycrylic can, so it can drain back in. For the "flat" circle ornaments, I placed a butter knife across the top, then the ornaments would stand straight up. After a minute or two, I moved them to the egg cartons, where they continued to drain. I've read to leave them drain for 15 minutes. I didn't time anything here, but it was probably more like 5 minutes. The dollar tree balls did not drain as completely - there was a small bit of "extra" polycrylic around the neck that I just could not get to pour out. Once the glitter was in, you could not tell.
It's surprising how satisfying it is to see the glitter coat the ornaments. I really, really enjoyed this step.
But I did end up with glitter all over.. even using the funnel. A lint brush helped clean it up.
I left the first batch dry a full 24 hours. The second batch, which I started before I even had vinyl on the first batch, I put the tops in after a few hours. To avoid scratching the tops of the ornaments when putting the tops on, pull the metal cap all the way to the bottom of the wire, like the one on the right in the photo above. Place it on the ornament, then push the wire in.
My mistake with these is that I got carried away with the glitter part, with no clear plan for after they are glittered. Normally I have a clear plan for my projects.. for this one I got caught up in "oh, pretty shiny glitter!!". Now I have all these glitter ornaments sitting here with no vinyl on them, days later... So far I have FOUR finished. And about 30 blank ones in front of me! My goal today is to get these all done. I've wasted a lot of money here, I am sure, because I had no plan, and my ornaments are the wrong size, or shape, or color, for the designs I thought I might use...
I compiled as many free Christmas ornament svgs as I could find, here:http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2017/11/free-svgs-for-christmas-ornaments.html(Please let me know if you find others!) My problem is, I don't see the point in making ornaments I can buy cheaply elsewhere. I'm really only interested in more personalized designs.. which means this has been a very time consuming project. But it's been fun!
The size of the design will vary - but as you can see here, for the 4 inch ornaments I used a roughly 3x3 design, and for the 3 inch ornaments, roughly 2x2.
Painters tape works as a good transfer tape for these!
For the bows on my ornaments, I use I use a mini bowdabra. It's currently one of my most favorite things.
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