Glass Flower Ornaments

posted by Diana

A little over a year ago, my step-mom gave me her wedding bouquet.

I took her bouquet of fresh, white daisies and hung the flowers upside-down to dry in my childhood bedroom. At the store, I bought a clear, plastic, Christmas bauble and some glittery scrap-booking stickers.

Then I shoved those dried flowers, not so delicately, into that plastic bauble. I added the sparkle letters and... voila! I had a super sentimental gift ready for under (and later on!) our Christmas tree.

I'm fairly certain the blue ribbon I used to attach it to the tree is the original "something blue" ribbon from my step-moms' bouquet.

You can make your own particularly sentimental ornament if you have any dried flowers handy, or, if you just like the look, you can stuff in some artificial flowers.

Last year, my roommate and I decorated our apartment for Christmas with pink and mint instead of the traditional red and green. Apparently that's still the trend I'm jonesing for this year...

For your own ornaments, all you need are:

• Artificial flowers
• Clear glass ornaments
• Ribbon
• Jewels
• Glitter

I got my ornaments from Michael's. They came in a 6-pack and were only $2.50 (normally $5... but you know I like my sales)!

Then I pulled apart one of my artificial carnations and shoved a petal inside the ornament. I had to use the flower's stem to really stick it in there, but I like the result. In the photo below, the ornament is holding just one petal!

I've had the pink carnation flowers forever. I keep trying to get rid of them... they were literally in a plastic bag full of stuff slated for Goodwill when I brought home my glass ornaments. Of course, I excavated every single flower from that bag even though one flower was enough to fill four of my heart ornaments. I just can't quit crafting potential...

Here's the biggest problem I ran into with my DIY ornaments... genius me didn't think to check if my sparkly gems would fit through the ornament openings. Womp womp. I still wanted a bit of sparkle, so I chucked some glitter in three of my ornaments, shook them up, and called it a day.

Please ignore that I'm the worst ribbon tier in the world. Other than that and the debacle with over-sized sparklies, these ornaments were so easy (and inexpensive!) to make. My favorite part? I can leave them up until Valentine's Day... 

Happy making!