"First" Christmas Ornament

My son got married in January, so I thought I'd make them a "first Christmas" ornament.

Here are the supplies you will need:

wire (22 guage or thicker), wired ribbon, mod podge, glitter, beads, brush, wire cutter, punch

and of course a used flat canning lid (not pictured) I save my used canning lids and have a ice cream bucket full of them.

I spray painted my lid a gold color and my husband drilled a small hole in the top and bottom of the lid. You can file down the sharp edges or get a hammer and hit a punch on the hole and it will flatten any sharp edges. This is how I did it. Find pictures that you want on the ornament and print them off on your printer on regular paper (not photo or card stock). Use the canning lid as a template and draw a circle around your picture. When you cut it out, cut inside the line around 1/4" or so.

Brush Mod Podge on the lid.


Put on the cut out picture and smooth away any wrinkles.



Pick a pretty font and color and type out "First Christmas 2009" on it. Print it and tear around the words and put it on top of the photo and apply another coat of Mod Podge over the entire surface.

I put a picture of the wedding cake on the back. Wait until the Mod Podge has dried on the pictures and apply another coat around the edge and sprinkle the glitter around the edge on both sides.



Cut two lengths of gold wire. Put one into the hole on top for the hanger. Shape it pretty like. Fold the other length of wire in half and insert it into a wooden heart that you have painted gold,

slide glass beads onto the wire, put the wire into the bottom drilled hole, bend over and twist it around and around.

Tie an approximately 2 foot length of wired ribbon into a bow around the bottom of the hanger. Here is the front of the finished product. It looks much better than the picture shows, the lighting is not good and there's a glare on the picture.


Here is the back view with the wedding cake.



There are lots of possibilities with this ornament. You can make one for a baby's "First Christmas", you could put Victorian pictures on the ornament, pet pictures on the ornament, etc. etc. If you do one for a baby, you could use a combination of small ribbons for the bow, paint the lid either blue or pink and hang pretty little plastic baby items instead of the heart.



I wasn't too good on the instructions, but I think you get the idea. They are pretty easy to make.
Use your imagination and make lots of different ones. You could use silver or copper wire, different kinds of ribbons and beads, homespun ribbon etc., like I said before the possibilities are endless.