dollar store ornaments

Shortly before thanksgiving, I hit the Dollar Tree looking for some inexpensive items I could turn into fun Christmas decor. 

I came across a whole section of treasures (that were upgradeable) for .50 and .25.  I don't think I've ever seen stuff at dollar tree for less than a dollar. I ended up buying about 6 12-pack boxes of silver plastic ornaments, green felt garland, pine cones, snowflakes ornaments, icicle ornaments, a few wreath forms, popsicle sticks and a few other ornaments that i can't remember right now.


I invested in some spray paint to transform my items and ended up with the following (some altered, some not)

 this is an attempt on a "tassle" ornament made with a cheap silver plastic ball and some old book pages and ribbon (all of which I already had)  the jury is still out on the results.

 these little snowflake were white with glitter on them and I hit them with a shot of orange spray paint to bring them into my color scheme for the tree

 i bought popsicle sticks at the dollar store and put the boys to work making me snowflakes out of them.  i think they made about 20 and i used 14 to make this wreath and then used the leftovers to make the ornaments shown below

 i just glued some ribbon and a bead on to make them a hanger, i really liked the natural feel they bring to the tree

 my little vintage tray needed something so i didn't do anything to the pine cones on the top, but i spray painted more of those little silver balls for the bottom...i have some more turquoise balls that i will be adding with the orange

 one of the nights i was working on the big paper wreath i previously posted about, i was so frustrated with not "finishing" something, i took a break and made this little ornament with mini versions of the flowers.  it felt really good to accomplish something.  these are just hot glued onto another one of those silver ornaments.

this is totally unrelated to the dollar store but i used more vintage book pages to make this little "Merry Christmas" sign in my dining room

this is at the top of the advent calendar i made for the boys this year.  it's just fabric (i already had) wrapped around the wreath, tied with a ribbon, hook inserted into the middle and this is where we put our countdown days to Christmas.  i printed off these free little labels from here.  she has some other great free downloads for Christmas.  i only wish i had some better paper to print them on.

a friend of mine sent me a pic of a little theme tree she was working on.  the theme was coffee and cupcakes and this idea instantly came to mind.  i used more of those cheap silver ornaments and hot glued a bunch of old coffee beans on them.  i love how these turned out.  their matte color is a nice break from all the shimmer, shine and glitter on the tree and they slightly resemble a pine cone from a distance.  i took one and glued it inside a paper cupcake liner and did a swirl of white glitter to make it look like a cupcake with icing also...it's not my style, but it totally fits her sweet, fun personality and was really fun to give her for her little theme tree!

that's all for now.  i will be doing a post on my advent calendar, my tree topper and the garland i've been making out of......you'll never guess.  vintage book pages.

(i apologize for the run on sentences in this post.  thankfully we're working on this with the boys for school, so you should see some improvements in my sentence structure soon!)

ornament

I realize this post is way late, but I had unrealistic expectations of what I could accomplish the week before our vacation. This is the first if one of the decorations I will share on here.

You'll start to see a theme! I'm liking this book page idea.
I scored some 12 packs of silver plastic ball ornaments at the dollar store for .50. I used one of those for this. this is what you need.

Plastic ornament ( important to have something with some give. Styrofoam would work too.

I will post pics tomorrow with these directions.

Old book you can cut up.

Scissors

Small bead

Hot glue

Ribbon

Cut one book page in strips width-wise.
Cut another 3 together width wise into 3 pieces.
Take each piece and still cutting the width direction cut 3/4 of the way up, creating a tassled look with your paper. Repeat on all pieces.

Glue strips vertically around the top of the ornament overlapping until it is covered.

Take your tassled pieces and glue them around the largest part of the ornament...kind of making a "skirt" around the ornament. Create about 2 or 3 layers. Whatever looks good to you.

Now, glue a band around the center of the circle, like a belt for the top of your skirt.

Cut the top couple layers a little shorter and uneven and then thin some of the top pieces out to make it look more like strands.

Tie a ribbon around your "belt"
I knot mine, but a bow might look cute too.

Cut another piece of ribbon for the hanger, however long you need it to be. Place the center of that ribbon at the top center of your ornament, put a small bead of glue on it, place your bead in the glue, on top of the ribbon. Tie a knot or bow in your ribbon and you're done!

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