Homemade Christmas Ornaments

Christmas Tree Photo balls put a personal touch on the holidays

Return to and reminisce with these simple homemade Christmas ornaments each year.


Around the winter holidays there are tons of different Christmas craft bazaars and new specialty stores that pop up for the season. But, nothing is more cherished than home made Christmas ornaments that have a story behind them and memories attached.


Although they require a little technology, its easy to make your own homemade christmas ornaments, even for those who don't consider themselves crafty.


Materials:

• Clear glass Christmas tree balls: These usually come in a box of 12-15 available at a local craft store around the holidays.


• Overhead Transparency Sheets: Purchase these at your local office supply store. Make sure you get the ones that can be used with a computer printer.


• Digital Camera: Nowadays most of us have one of these.


• Computer and color printer: If you don't have a color printer, you can use the black and white option or take you images and transparency sheets to a local copy center.

Directions:

1. This is where the homemade christmas ornament project gets really fun and personalized. Decide how you want your photo balls to look. Will you take candid shots of everyone when they aren't looking? Will you set up a more formal family photo? What about pets? Don't forget to include the family dog.



2. Use your digital camera to take the necessary pictures. You have to option of creating a variety of photo balls as a set or repeating the same picture so that you can give the duplicates to friends and extended family.



3. Load the picture you took onto you computer.



4. Using a simple program like Microsoft Word create a template for the photos to be added to. (Directions for how to create a template follow at the end of this article). Of course, if you are computer savvy enough you can use whatever program you prefer.



5. Insert photos into the circles on the template and resize them until you get the desired positioning. Note, you will lose some of you photo edges due to creating a circle from a rectangle.



6. Save the filled in template and then either print it on your transparency sheet or take it to a copy center to have it done for you.



7. Cut out the printed circles from your transparency sheets.



8. Carefully remove the metal top from the Christmas tree ball.



9. Roll one of the pictures into a small tube and slide it into the ball with the bottom of the picture facing down.



10. The stiffness of the transparency will cause the picture to open on its own once inserted into the ball.



11. Replace the metal top on the ball and repeat steps 7-9 for additional homemade Christmas ornaments.