School DIY Photo Ornament

Some of my favorite ornaments on my mom’s tree are the ones that have our old school pictures on them.  I remember making them in school and being so excited for my mom and dad to open up a special gift just from me!  So for the fourth day in my 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments series, I have a cute idea for a snow globe DIY photo ornament.  Perfect for an older kid to make for mom and dad or a teacher to make for parents.  Also make sure to take a look at all of my other homemade Christmas ornament tutorials and free felt Christmas ornament patterns.

It’s a little felt snow globe with beads inside.  Shake it up, and it starts to snow!  So stinkin’ cute, right?!

To make this DIY photo ornament you will need:

• a school picture (seriously, can they please try and get a real smile out of the kids?!)
• clear vinyl fabric (sold by the yard in the home decor section of the fabric store)
• small white beads
• felt
• glue or embroidery floss
• ribbon
• free snow globe ornament pattern found here

This DIY photo ornament will take some prep work if you plan on making them in the classroom (more or less depending on the age of the children).  Use the pattern to cut a circle out of the clear vinyl and your picture.  (My picture was a little smaller than I wanted, so instead of a circle, it got cut out like this.)  Put the vinyl on top of your picture and sew around the edges, leaving an opening at the top.  Pour in some beads and then sew the top shut.  The beads don’t move around perfectly since there isn’t much room in there, but it’s still cute.  If you aren’t handy with the sewing machine, maybe staples or hot glue would work?  I don’t really know since I haven’t tried.  Leave a comment and let me know if you do!

Cut out the rest of the pattern pieces in felt.

Now, if you know how much I love hand embroidery, you know how hard it was for me to glue this.  For the sake of making this a more kid-friendly craft, I whipped out my Elmer’s and glued all of the pieces together.  Just fold the ribbon in half to make a loop, glue it on the top of the ornament back, and glue the picture on top of that.

Next, glue the ring piece on top of the picture.

Again, I was tempted to embroider the date on the ornament, but instead I had Evan write “2013” on the bottom with a Sharpie.  He did a pretty good job!

Finish the ornament off by gluing on the bottom piece.

I think we might need to make a few for grandma and grandpa’s trees?  Maybe just one with a group picture in it.  What do you think?

My bloggy friends have also been hard at work this month posting Christmas projects!  Go check out their awesomeness and give them some comment love.

 <<click here to go day five of this series>>

Hope you are enjoying my 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments series.  Make sure to go back here to the first post and enter the awesome giveaway!