Cookie Cutter Ornaments, and a little Fabulous Friday

A couple years ago when I was realizing how incredibly bare our Christmas tree was, I came up with a fun kid friendly craft project to add some sparkle to our tree. At the time, our oldest daughter was the only one I trusted to be in control of the glitter, so this year I decided to try it again but let all three of our kids in on the fun. And it was a lot of fun, but I must warn you. Glitter is glitter is glitter, no matter what you do, that stuff gets everywhere. At least it's pretty though right?




I'm guessing that most of you could figure this out on your own just from the title, but just because I want to, I'm going to walk you through it a little.

First off is what you will need...

cookie cutters (mine were plastic, and I got a bag of six for a buck at the dollar store)
white glue (I used mod podge, but I'm sure Elmer's glue would work too)
Glitter
Clear sealant (I used Krylon clear finishing spray. It was right next to the glitter)
string or ribbon for hanging

Optional...
Beads
collapsible eye beading needles (If your going to use beads, these are not optional, they are a must)

Let me pause for a minute to tell you about these wonderful beading needles. I didn't even know they existed until Thanksgiving weekend when my Mom found them for me at Micheal's. They were only a couple dollars, and if you plan on making any ribbon necklaces in the future, don't follow these instructions I gave for a makeshift needle, just use one of these. They work wonderful!

OK, back to the ornaments. First up is to cover your table in newspaper! Then give your kids a paint brush and let them go to work on their ornaments. It works best to do this in stages though so that one side has time to dry and then you can flip it over and do the other side. We did the front and inside first.


Next, and this is very important, (I learned this the hard way) if your glitter doesn't have a shaky thing on top, don't just let your kids dump the glitter on the ornament, it will end up in every crevice of your house and their bodies. Pour the glitter into a sandwich bag, and glitter your ornaments shake and bake style, only shake gently. You may have to touch up a few of the edges, but believe me, that's a whole lot cleaner than doing it all by hand.

Set the cookie cutters on the newspaper to dry and spray on a light coat of clear finish. You can skip the clear finish if you really want to, but you'll be finding a lot more glitter around your house if you do. Let the whole thing dry and do the other side.

At this point you can tie on some ribbon and be done, which is what we did the first time, but this year I wanted to make them a little more fun so we added on some beads.

I wanted to use some really skinny white ribbon, but Michigan seems to be experiencing a skinny white ribbon shortage right now, so I had to settle for white beading string.

The first step here is to just cut a long piece of string. You can cut off the excess when your done. Then, loop it around the ornament and tie a knot. If your using large beads, you will need a pretty big knot. In the end, I ended up doing two small beads and one larger bead in the middle, so I went back a re-tied a smaller knot than this.

Next, get out that awesome beading needle and thread your string through it. String on your beads.

Finally, give yourself whatever size loop you want for hanging, and tie another knot on top. And, it's never a bad idea to add a drop of super glue to the knot.

Now, just let your excited kids, who have been waiting forever for these to be finished, hang up their special ornaments.

What's fun, is that every day now since we made these, I've heard my kids tell each other "hey look, I found my ornament!"

Since our cookie cutters came from the dollar store, were not 100% sure what all of them are supposed to be, but we think this is a snowman.

And I'm still not sure if this is supposed to be an angel, or just a ginger bread woman. We made her into an angel though.

OK, enough pictures of sparkly cookie cutters. Here is my very short Fabulous Friday tip.

It's winter, which means we've got a lot of this flying around!

It's the most frustrating on Sundays when I've spent so much time torturing them, I mean fixing their hair, and then we get to church, they take their coats off and you can literally see the sparks jumping from their coats to their hair.

The quick fix to this is simply rub some lotion on your hands, and then right before it's all the way rubbed in, run your hands through their hair. Or your own. Mine isn't much better right now.

PS. If you need more fun Holiday ideas, check out this party and this party that I linked up to!