Diamonds & Pearls

by Three Dogs in a Garden

This little craft idea couldn't be any easier! In fact these ornaments are so simple to make, you could easily do this project with the kids or grandkids. (When working with kids just make sure to choose large stickers that are easy for little hands to work with.)
The list of materials you need is pretty short in all my examples.

Materials you need for these DIY snowflake ornaments:

• a box of ornaments with a pearl finish

• snowflake stickers with a diamond-like finish on a transparent backdrop (I found my snowflakes at Michaels)

• a sheet of individual blue diamonds (not shown- also available at Michaels)

• pair of scissors

• ribbon or a metal hook to hang the finished ornament

Step 1: Detach a snowflake sticker from the transparent backing paper. Place the sticker on the face of the ornament, but don't press it down just yet! When a sticker is roughly tacked into position, it is still easy to lift and move. As you build your design on your ball, you may need to lift and adjust the spacing of your stickers.

Step 2: The fun in this project is creating your own snowflake pattern on the surface of your ornament. Once you are happy with the layout of your pattern, press the snowflakes down with your thumb to secure them in place.

Let your imagination be your guide in creating your pattern.

To create my ornament, I placed a row of snowflakes around the middle of the ball. On the bottom centre of the ball, I put a full snowflake. At the top of the ornament, I used fan-shaped sections, which I created by cutting up full snowflakes with my scissors. In between the snowflakes, I filled the empty space with individual blue diamonds.

There are an amazing array of stickers on a clear backing available. You can find stripes and swirls as well as individual diamonds and pearls to personalize any plain ornament.

Materials you need for these ornaments with a pearl swirl:

• a box of pearl ornaments

• stickers with swirls that have a pearl finish (I found these at the Dollar store)

• a sheet of individual pearls (to fill in any gaps)

• pair of scissors

• ribbon or a metal hook to hang the finished ornament

I found that the complicated swirls could be become a bit of a nightmare to deal with once you pulled them off the transparent backing paper, so I cut the swirls into smaller sections with my scissors and pieced the sections back together on my ornament.