The hardball ornament

My friend and fellow Christmas Forest tree decorater, Faye B., saw a beautiful paper ornament and sent me a picture of it. It was love at first sight and I was determined to figure out how to construct something like it. I dredged around and found a pattern on the internet and it was only after I had made about three of the ornaments that I reread the instructions and realized I was making life much harder for myself-although I really like my accidental invention better and think its much prettier in the long run.  

There are two versions of the paper ornament here, the easy ball would be great to do with kids for the holidays. You can use any old book with fairly sturdy paper and its fun to see the balls come together.

 Easy ball on the left, black glitter hard ball on the right

Start out by finding paper you'll enjoy using. I found old sheet music and loved its black and white effect for my project, since the tree is pretty much white and silver at this point. Hint: I found Zots glue dots the day after most of these balls were finished (of course) at Joanne's and they work great! No burnt fingers! 
 
 
 

Here is one more shot of the finished ball showing the glue points for the "hard ball"

 
 

The hard part is done! Now I just have to make about 37 more of these, that's a lot of sheet music! My friends Jamie and Carolee came over like the good elves they are, and lent a hand. Jamie cut out circles until I'm sure she was going in circles and Carolee spent the morning packing up all the finished ornaments after giving them their ribbon bows. Such a lot of help and friends speed the work along too.

The most magical part happens with putting the wire through the hole I drilled with the Dremel, giving the ball a good all over dusting of spray glue ( my favorite is Aleene's spray glue, it works great. Michael's with a coupon for about five bucks a can). Then the fun part– the ball is dropped gently in the Shake 'n Make glitter bag and shaken gently. I use its wire hanger to pull it out and tap off the excess glitter before hanging it up to receive a ribbon. These are so pretty I'm dying to try different sizes and different kinds of paper.

 
Jamie working away cutting circles.

 
Carolee ribboning up an ornament

Running in to town to hunt up glue dots I discovered Martha Stewart makes black glitter! The coolest stuff ever. It is so elegant and sparkly, I'm ready to roll in it! I'm still a major fan of German glass glitter, Meyer Imports on line, but come on, black glitter is cool!

 
beautiful black glitter edges, labor intensive but so elegant!