Homemade Christmas Ornaments

"Sparkling Christmas Wreath"

Submitted by Sophia L. of Texas

Materials Needed:

White Rice

Red and Green Food Coloring

Pencil, Green Marker or Green Paint

Poster Board or Cardboard, preferably green

Glue (Elmer's or Craft glue) and Glitter Glue

String or Ribbon

Whole Punch, Toothpicks, and Scissors

Two Small Bowls and Newspaper

Photo of Special Someone

Instructions:

1.  Dye rice.  Place newspaper on working surface.  Perform the following steps on the newspaper to protect working surface area.  Place ¼ cup rice in small bowl and add 10-15 drops of red food coloring.  Stir with toothpick until all grains of rice are colored.  If the rice does not look dark enough, add more food coloring.  Follow same steps for making ¼ cup rice green.  Set aside for about 5 minutes to dry.

2. Make your wreath.  Cut a circle, with a 4 in. radius, out of poster board or cardboard.  You may use a can or cup that measures a 4 in. radius, trace it, then cut it out. (A thicker board will keep the wreath from warping after the glue dries.)  If you do not have green poster board, paint or color your poster board green.  This will cause the areas that do not get covered with rice to show through with a green background.  Draw a smaller circle, 1 ¾ in. radius, in the center of the circle you just cut out.  You may use a round glue bottle or other object to trace the circle.

3. Make hole to string ornament.  Use the whole punch to make a hole in the top center of your circle.

4.  Glue picture onto wreath.  Using the same object that you traced your smaller circle of the wreath, trace a circle around the portion of the picture you have selected.  Cut it out using scissors.  Glue the picture onto the center circle of the wreath.

5.  Glue red rice, representing berries, onto wreath.  Put enough glue on four or five parts of the wreath to glue about ½ teaspoon of the red rice.  Drop ½ teaspoon of red rice onto glue.  Use a toothpick to "clump" the rice into three sections, making them look like red berries.  Let it sit for a few minutes to dry.

6.  Glue green rice onto wreath.  Fill the rest of the wreath with glue.  Drop green rice onto glue.  You can cover the wreath with extra rice and shake off the excess after it dries.  Use a toothpick to arrange or adjust rice, as needed, around the berries and the picture.

7.  Apply glitter glue.  Liberally apply glitter glue over the red and green rice.  (When it dries only the glitter will be seen.)  Let wreath dry overnight.

8.  String and date wreath.  Place your string or ribbon through the punched hole.  On the back of the wreath, write the name of the child/person, age, and year of photo.

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I designed this ornament because of the readily available kitchen and craft materials in my home and because it is always special to have an ornament with our children and grandchildren's pictures.  They make great memoirs. 

Homemade Christmas Ornaments Index