I wanted to make a special gift for a friend’s grand-daughter’s first birthday.  And since I always have Christmas on my mind, I thought that a Christmas ornament that was personalized would be a nice gift.  I wanted it to be a ‘girly-girl’ gift, so I went with Shabby Chic.  And while I was at it, I may as well make more than one.  It’s always nice to have extra gifts on hand.  Well, this is what I made:

And this is how I made them:

At this time of year, it’s hard to find things for ornaments.  So after searching every craft store in town, I found this:

Doesn’t look very much like Christmas or Shabby Chic.  But a little paint & ‘stuff’ can change anything.

As you can see, it had a wooden ledge on the back.  I used a razor blade to gently and very carefully remove it.  Then I used white acrylic paint to base coat the frames on both sides.  Then I had to add a second coat because the shapes were showing through.

Then I painted the frames with the paint colors that I wanted.  I used pink, baby blue, light green & lilac.

Since I was doing a Shabby Chic theme, I wanted to use some cameos.  But I couldn’t find much.  I did find these bracelets, that I took apart.

and once apart, I painted one in each color of the frames.

Then, I painted some Mod Podge on to the frames & added glitter.  (you know how much I love glitter)  I started with the pink glitter, clear glitter (on the green & blue frames)  & purple glitter.

                   

                   

Once you remove the excess glitter, it looks like this:

I got out a bunch of supplies to use.  Lace, ribbon roses, ribbons, gems, pearl strands, etc.  They’re all pretty much different yet the same.  I started to add lace to each of the frames.

                                  

Then I made some pearl bows by making a loop and then bringing the top of the loop behind the part where it crosses.  Then using a small piece of wire, I anchored it in place by twisting the wire behind the bow.

                                           

                                 

I did the same thing with ribbon to make ribbon bows, but I used thread to anchor those.

I put small stick-on gem stone in the center of some ribbon roses

            

I placed a cameo on it’s matching frame

And then I started to add pearls to the frames

I glued on bows & roses to the corners & around the cameos. Then I added a piece of ribbon to hang the little frame.

             

After I got all of the frames the way I wanted them, I had to fill the frames.  The little frames came with a piece of clear plastic, so I used photo safe tape & taped the plastic in place.  For the special little girl, I taped her picture into the frame, and I cut a piece of foam to fit the frame.  Using double sided photo safe tape, I taped it to the back of the finished frame.

 

For the other frames, I wanted words in the center.  I printed out the words “Love, Peace, Hope” on to card stock in colors to match the frames.  I played with the frames until the words were centered.  Then I traced around the frame, on the card stock, and cut inside the line.

Using the photo safe, double sided tape, I adhered the card stock to the frames.

        

        

They took awhile to make, but I love the way they turned out.

These ornaments/frames are easy to make & there is no rule as to how you put it together or what you put in it.  Play around with what you have on hand & make it your own.

Happy Creating everyone!