Love to craft? Me too!!!
I love to craft during the holidays. I start getting all of these catalogues for the home around Halloween and then it's on, the inspiration arrives and I begin my crafting ritual. It always gives me a sense of, I want it, so if I can make it I can have it and save a whole lot of money, so I win!!!!
This is my craft table right now.
The Vintage Pastel collection I worked on turned out to be so 'yesterday'
I really enjoyed the vintage pastel collection I made a few years ago. I decided this would be my theme for this year as well, so I made this wreath to go over my mantle. Then I found these really cute light up iridescent trees at the 99 cent store and these white and hombre pink bottle brush trees at the Dollar Tree. I'm thinking this is going to complement my vintage pastel tree so nicely.
This year's inspiration
Then I fell in love with a new ornament set, which, of course was not vintage pastel. Instead, this inspiration is a fresh new mix of colors and textures.
This ornament set is from Grandin Road and retails for $189.00. I don't know about you, but that's expensive for me. Ok, yes, they are glass blown and imported, true enough. However, I personally prefer shatterproof because I have pets and concrete floors so ornaments will fall off the tree. I would be really upset if any of them got broken especially after paying $189 plus shipping for them.
This got me thinking, I had so much luck recreating the vintage pastel inspiration set, by collecting and doing a few DIYs, I think I can make or collect this set for much cheaper and I don't have to worry about them breaking. Plus, here's my craft project for the holidays, right?
Easily accessible DIY supplies
Herein lies the challenge. This set includes large finials which I was able to locate on Amazon in the clear but not in the colors. Ok, I thought, I will paint them, problem solved (I thought).
Next this set has gold foiling on several ornaments. Dollar Tree has gold foil, so I will foil them, problem solved (I thought). The baubles of this set seem to be much bigger than average sized ones too, but again, Dollar Tree has those so I'll go get a dozen or so of those in various sizes and paint those as well. All of my problems are now solved, or so I thought.
I collected the DIY stuff I would need which included the following:
- clear, shatterproof finials from Amazon
- clear, shatterproof baubles from Dollar Tree
- craft paints in pastel colors ( I can collect the other shiny ornaments of this set)
- gold foil from Dollar Tree
- paint additive to help paint adhere to plastic (there are lots of different kinds, I tried several)
- Mod Podge (shiny or matte, I didn't have shiny so I used matte, but I didn't like it)
- Clear spray paint (shiney)
- gold craft paint
This DIY was fraught with issues
To be honest, this project turned into a 'Is it worth it or not?' situation. First of all, I really didn't like working with the foil. It looked awful to me, the ones in the inspiration set look really nice, but I personally could not recreate it. Instead I used the chunky glitter on the smaller baubles and I liked it much better.
The blue one was my tester bauble so you can maybe see where there is some foil, then there's gold paint on top of that and then I went with the glitter. The other colors only have the glitter, to me they look much cleaner.
2. Not all paints and paint additives are the same.
Painting on plastic can be really tricky too apparently. I tried a variety of craft paints, they were all about the same result except the premixed pour paint. It was the worst. Since I was going to paint the inside of the ornaments I needed something that would flow well but also adhere permanently and dry quickly, the pour paint drained out almost completely, so I don't recommend that kind of paint for this project. Older paints that I had already, didn't work as well, so go ahead and buy new paints for this project. I didn't really notice a difference between cheapo craft paint and more expensive craft paint, so this can save you money as well, by buying the cheaper brand, except for the pour paint, I don't recommend using that for this project.
I knew I would need an additive also. The ones I tried were: baking soda (to make a chalk-like paint), Elmer's white glue, Mod Podge, and Polycrylic Protective Finish (a Minwax product). I recommend the Polycrylic mixed into your paint in a 1:1 ratio. You actually don't need a lot of paint for this project, I used disposable mouthwash cups to mix and pour into the baubles. I used droppers to pour the paint into the finials.
3. Drying time took forever
Once painted, you will need to drain the excess paint into a plastic cup or newspaper, or whatever you have. This is where the problem started with all of the other products besides the Polycrylic. Typically too much would drain out and then when I would try to apply a second coat things got gloppy inside the baubles especially when using glue based products like Mod Podge and Elmers. This mixture also seemed to take way longer to dry than the others too. The baking soda seems to thin out the paint somehow so it didn't work for me at all.
Since draining is very important you will need to monitor them to make sure that they are still covered with paint inside all over, I had places where paint wouldn't adhere and no matter how many times I turned it to cover the inside, eventually it would drain off again. The Polycrylic prevented this from happening as bad.
Recommendations:
- You can use chunky glitter as an alternative to foiling, seal them with clear, glossy spray paint
- Use inexpensive, new craft paint
- Use Minwax's Polycrylic as a paint additive in a 1:1 ratio
- Pour about 2 -3 tablespoons of paint mixture into ornaments, swirl and drain
- Dry ornaments for several days,
turn them regularly.
Is it worth it or not?
If you are a crafter like me and you have all of the stuff (and the knowledge) already, then I would recommend making this set. Everything is easily accessible at your favorite craft store or dollar store. If you are thinking about just trying to collect the pieces, I will tell you that I had a really hard time finding baubles in these pastel colors. They just aren't there yet on Amazon or in the stores where I have shopped for them. Or if you can find them, you have to buy 100 pieces of the same color and if you're like me, you already have too many baubles.
The other thing is that with a DIY you will always have to accept some imperfections. This is fine with me if helps me to save money. So, in this case I got more ornaments for less money.
Grandin Roads collection
If you don't have the time but you have the money and don't mind glass ornaments, then I think this is a great set. The only thing to remember is that this is a 20 piece set and I was able to DIY and collect over 50 Pieces for around $75. 
My collection
The striped finials are a collected item. I bought these on sale for 50% off from Hobby Lobby. They are, unfortunately, made of glass.
What's more environmentally friendly?
There are so many factors involved; manufacturing, shipping, how many jobs are created by each way of 'getting' them, how do those "jobs" impact nature. If I were to do an actual analysis, it would probably be more environmentally friendly to buy the glass set. So it would seem that this is a rare instance in which a DIY would have more of a negative environmental impact because of the number of supplies needed and how we have to go about getting them. On the other hand, by DIYing most of my set, I was able to produce more ornaments. What do you think?
Either way, crafting is fun. These ornaments are beautiful and I love my tree this year, it even blends well with my vintage pastel mantle pieces. I hope this was helpful, thought provoking, and inspiring.
Happy crafting. Stay environmentally conscious and have a beautiful holiday season filled with love and joy.
XOXO,
JORISOBOHO
