Made It: Layered Circles Christmas Ornaments

Hello! Did you notice that Christmas is one month from today? Yikes! Fortunately for me, I recently came across a fairly easy but cute Christmas ornament project on Pinterest. I decided to adapt it for the yearly handmade ornament gifts I make for my nieces and nephews. 

The project was labeled "Layered Circles Christmas Ornaments". The examples I saw used plastic ornament balls, a glue gun, and circles punched out from a flower painting book with a 1" punch. 

I had a few plastic ornament balls, bought on clearance years ago, but not enough of all the same size for the number of ornaments I needed to make (that's what happens sometimes when you get stuff on clearance). I hunted in the thrift stores for more plastic ornament balls, but didn't come across any. I broke down and bought some new ones (gasp!) from the craft department at Meijer (I'm sure that the craft stores have them as well). 

I wasn't going to use a book on flower paintings for my ornaments. I doubted that my nieces and nephews would appreciate that look. Instead, I turned to my collection of secondhand books, both vintage and newer, to craft their gifts. I tried to find books that fit the ages of the kids - for instance, pages from a book on the history of architecture for a studious, brilliant high school sophomore nephew. 

Here's how two of the ornaments turned out:

The top ornament was crafted from pages of a 1962 baseball guide. Since this is going to a nephew who lives in southeastern Michigan, I made sure to use pages from the section on the Detroit Tigers. 

Next to it is an ornament whose circles were punched from a vintage children's textbook. This ornament is earmarked for a young niece. 

The instructions called for a glue gun, but I did fine sticking the circles on with craft glue. It was also suggested to draw guidelines around the ornaments to help in placing the circles, but I didn't bother doing this. I found I had a little time to move the circles around as needed before the glue set. 

The directions didn't call for glitter, either, but I added some to dress up the ornaments a bit. I just dabbed a little craft glue onto the circles' edges and sprinkled away with glitter. (vintage glitter no less, lol)

And the thin curved piece near the tops of my ornaments? That's actually narrow organza ribbon tied to the ornament caps. But before I tied the ribbons on, I wrote the names of the recipients plus the year 2014 on them. I like to personalize the ornaments I make with the name/date every year. 

The names change over time - once the kids graduate from high school, I no longer make them ornaments. I figure once they're on their own, they'll need room on their Christmas trees for other ornaments! But as I come from a large family, I still had several ornament gifts to make this year. 

And with Christmas fast approaching, I'm glad I have the ornaments finished! If you'd like to make these yourself, look here.