Festive Florals: Hand Painting Ornaments to Match Your Decor
Today I want to show you how I painted my own Christmas ornaments using a box of round plastic Christmas bulbs, some paint, my own creativity, and some inspiration from my friend @shaydacampbell.The best thing about this DIY craft is you can customize it to fit whatever colour scheme and aesthetic vibe you want! Let me show you how I painted them to fit in with my own decor.
What you need to make your own painted ornaments
All these paint colours were just my own personal choice. You can use whatever you have in your home or whatever colours strike your fancy at your local craft store when you’re browsing!
Floral foam and wooden skewers (for a drying rack!)
Cracked Pepper interior paint
Rustoleum Aged Metallic spray paint
Windsor and Newton acrylic paints in yellow ochre and crimson red
Moroccan Spice interior paint
Painting the base layer
The paint I used to coat the clear plastic bulbs and create a base layer for the rest of my design is the same paint I used for my kitchen cabinets! Obviously this will create a lot of cohesion between my home and my holiday decor, but don’t feel like you have to go overboard if you don’t have leftover paint from your renovations like I did. Use whatever colour you love!
I hemmed and hawed over the best way to dry these ornaments without having to set them down on any surface, which would cause them to smudge. I decided to create a drying rack out of a piece of floral foam and some long wooden skewers.
I took the hangers off the ends of the ornaments and held the ornaments at the very top while I used a brush to paint the rest. (The ends would be covered by the hangers so it was ok if I smudged them.)
When each bulb was painted, I put it top-down onto a skewer and let it dry completely. Repeat this process 25 times!
Refinishing the ornament hangers
While the bulbs were drying, I spray painted the hangers. They came in silver, and that just doesn’t work well in my house! So, I stuck the pointed ends carefully into another piece of floral foam and spray painted them all with Rustoleum Aged Metallic (gold, essentially).
Adding the floral design
Once everything was dry, it was time to add the finishing touches!
When I first set up to paint, my intention was to give the bulbs a floral farmhouse vibe. But art and creativity are surprising, and sometimes you don’t really know what’s going to happen until you start! That’s what happened here.
I used the colour palette of my home and decor as inspiration. I painted some pretty leaf designs in yellow ochre and added a Moroccan Spice overlay using interior paint that I had left over from my walls. This gave my design a darker colour and some depth.
Then, I added some crimson red points at the base of each leafy design.
What started out as a plan for florals ended up as a kind of aesthetic holly design. I love it! And with the antique gold tops I think the look is perfect for my tree.
Would you try painting your own design on a set of plastic bulb ornaments? What would you do differently than me? Let me know in the comments or tag me @diydanie with your own painted ornament creations!
