With clear plastic ornaments and a bit of acrylic craft paint from the dollar store, you can make these easy marbled ornaments in any colour combination to match your Holiday decor.
I had a dilemma; a minor one, but a small nagging concern that was eating at me… an empty bowl in my Christmas family room.
I know, first world problems – but it was the last element I wanted to complete before photographing my Christmas tree for the blog.
I used up all of my white and champagne ornaments on the Christmas tree itself, so I had nothing left to scatter here and there throughout the room (Craftberry Bush style). I wanted to draw some of the colour from the tree over to the other side of the room to make less of a “glom” in one spot… so my only option was to buy more ornaments.
But who wants to buy more ornaments for just one or two bowls? Okay, I totally did, but I couldn’t find exactly the right shade lol.
What I did find were these clear plastic ornaments I’d purchased last year from Michael’s:
The tag reads $3 each, but I’m pretty sure I picked them up at half-price after the Holidays.
The girls have some acrylic paints that we purchased at the dollar store, so I chose three colours that would coordinate with my tree and started experimenting.
(Please forgive the filthy paint-covered hands – I had just finished spray painting the roof of my dog house before starting this project)
I squirted drools (sounds gross, but you know what I mean) of the three colours into the neck of the ornaments and then rolled it around until the interior of the bulb was covered.
From there I put my finger in the end of the Christmas ornament and shook the shit out of it. lol That’s a technical crafting term so that you understand the volume and intensity of shaking that was done.
It softened the hard lines of the acrylic paint and blended the colours together in a soft, flowing way = easy marbled ornaments!
Yes, I got a lot of paint on the outside of the ornaments as well, but don’t worry too much about that – it washes off pretty easily.
My easy marbled ornaments turned out BEAUTIFULLY!!
Until they dried…
I’m not sure where I made my mistake… not letting the insides dry completely before putting the ornament hangers back on, or maybe I should have washed the inside of the ornaments with rubbing alcohol to start with to get out any manufacturing oils – but the paint inside kept sliding down the marbled ornaments and now I’m left with a few (small) bald spots.
No biggie, I just turned them down so they aren’t noticeable – but I mention it in case you try this tutorial.
These easy marbled are SO PRETTY – flaws and all… much like myself ahem. lol
There are tutorials online for marbled ornaments with stronger lines and feathering – but (based on the ones I saw) they were either dipped into paint pours or nail polish and then coated with a clear coat of varnish once dry. That was too many steps for me – and let’s face it, nail polish gets expensive to just pour onto ornaments. This way is much less expensive and takes far less time.
At $1.50 per ornament and $1 per craft paint colour – this project came in at a whopping $10.50 for 5 marbled ornaments… not too shabby right?
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Have a great one!
