Sara's First Crafty Christmas Tree Challenge Ornament!

Sooo...I have about all of my supplies for my tree, and a few things started, but tonight I finished my first batch of ornaments and wanted to share! As explained in an earlier post, all of this thrifty tree creation-inspiration is due to a challenge presented to bloggers by Mega-Crafty--to decorate a tree for under $20. 

Remember in grade school, drawing on cardboard with glue and then covering it with aluminum foil? Yea, I went there... and while the concept is EXTREMELY simple and old school, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out:

Here are the supplies you need for these ornaments, along with totaling up the teeny dent these gems put in my budget.

Cardboard (Hello upcycle!): free

Aluminum foil: $1 Roll at Dollar tree

Markers: On-hand (pretty sure they don't count out of my budget) Everyone has markers right??

Hot Glue: Also on-hand

Ribbon: Again, I already had tons of extra ribbon around, but to play it safe we'll take another dollar away from the budget! $1

That leaves me with a grand total of...... $18.00 left towards my tree! And I made 15 ornaments with the $2 spent.

Here's how I made them: I started with drawing some simple ornament shapes onto the cardboard. I chose to use 3 different shapes--cut the first shape out and use it as a stencil so that they are all uniform in size.

Next, use the hot glue to draw designs and patterns on the cardboard shapes. Hot glue is the best option for this because it dries fast and goes on thicker for more defined lines, but Elmer's would work just as well if little ones wanted to try their tiny fingers at crafting!

After the glue has dried, place the cardboard shapes face down onto the dull side of a piece of aluminum foil. It took me a few ornaments in to realize that before you start wrapping the foil back around the edges of the shape, be sure to press and smooth the foil over the glue design on the front first. You want to have the lines as defined as possible and if the foil is pulled too tight, it will tear when you add the color later.

Use the markers to fill in the openings created by the glue lines--ala stained glass--or color directly on the lines to make the 3D patterns pop. I'm going with a metallic purple/pink/blue scheme for my tree.

Lastly, cut the ribbon into 6-8" pieces, fold in half, and glue the two ends to the back and top of the ornament.

TA-DA! Elementary School Chic!