They look pretty damn amazeballs don't they? And as I marvel at my glistening Christmas tree I am proud of my hard work. It paid off. It better have. Because hard work it was indeed. Ok, well, maybe not hard. But long and tedious and slightly miserable.
So, if you keep up with me via the blog or my various social channels, you are already know that DIY projects are not what I am typically getting myself into. "Do It Yourself" has never seemed appealing in any aspect, much less crafty things. But, I put negativity aside and pushed optimism to the forefront and decided one night I was going to make my own Christmas ornaments. And they were going to be spectacular!
Obviously I didn't come up with this idea. Not remotely possible. I Google'd "DIY Christmas ornaments" and various articles popped up, none of which impressed. Almost all the DIY's looked pretty lame. Like ornaments your 7 year-old might bring home from school during December arts & crafts projects at school. While that's cute, cute is not what I wanted for my glam tree. So, when I stumbled on an image of these lovely gold-leafed balls, I was sold. I knew what I was going to do.
For reference, you can check out the original DIY for this project done by The Sweetest Occasion here. Her tutorial was so simple. God bless her. Because in theory, this DIY is totally simple. Assuming you're only making 5-6, even 10 of these ornaments. Keep it under 10 and hell, this project might even be considered fun! But Lord help me....I don't know how many I had to make, but I had to make enough to cover my 7-foot Christmas tree...and this honey didn't have any of Santa's elves at her disposal to get the job done.
When you have a lot of ornaments to make, and it's a process, you realize what you really needed was an assembly line:
STEP 2: Lightly brush on the special tacky stuff where ever you are gonna want to apply the gold leaf. Let the stuff dry 10 minutes until tacky. Note I call it "tacky stuff". I still don't know what exactly it is. Just go to the paint section of your craft store and you'll see it along with sheets of gold leaf. I just bought whatever was in the Martha Stewart collection for this sort of undertaking. Stick with Martha because on the back of the packaging she literally tells you all the products you'll need to be fully prepped for your project.
STEP 3: Apply the gold leaf and brush it smooth to cover any tacky surfaces, brushing off any excess.
STEP 4: Spray the ornaments with a clear sealer. Let them dry.
STEP 5: Not necessary but of course I felt the need to further complicate my life. And so I spray painted all the ornament caps gold because they came in silver. And silver just wasn't gonna do it for me. Let those dry too and then carefully pop them back on to your finished ornaments.
STEP 6: Hang on tree. Step back. Admire. Take a shot of tequila. Make that 2 shots. And proclaim how you are never, ever doing this shit again......till next Christmas!
*disclaimer - What I failed to mention was the part in between steps 3 and 4. The part where I was moving the ornaments to an area where I could spray them with a coat of sealer. The part where I carefully tried to walk them over and one of the glass ones fell. Shattered. And not only was there glass everywhere, but there was minty green wet paint splattered across the floor too. Did I mention this was all happening at about 1am? FML.
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