Christmas Ornament picture Craft!

I LOVE easy, beautiful, cheap and meaningful crafts. In our MOPS group, we recently made the cutest Christmas ornaments so I wanted to share. I must give credit where credit is due. I did NOT come up with this idea on my own. Our Craft coordinator, Jessica came up with this idea and she found it online from another MOPS mom who came up with it.

THIS is what I spent 5 minutes making today. Yes, you heard correctly. It takes 5 minutes :) Sometimes in my busy life, that is all I have time for!

What you'll need for this project:

Clear Christmas balls (They can be found at Hobby Lobby, and the good news there is that all Christmas decorations there are 50% off! You can get them individually, but the more cost-effective way is to by a pack of 12 which I bought for $5!)

a picture that is approximately 3 inches across

scissors

pretty ribbon

holiday "filler"

2 tooth picks

1. Choose a picture that you want to be in your Christmas ball. measure the ball length-wise and using some sort of circle you have on hand, make a template from a piece of card-stock. At the top of the circle, draw a rectangle the width of the top of the ball. (The picture will help explain this). Trace your template onto your pictures and cut it out, leaving the top tab in place.

2. Remove the top of the Christmas ball. Carefully put a bit of filler in the bottom of the ball if you so chose. You definitely can skip this step, but I think it makes it look pretty!

3. Roll your picture around a pencil, remove the pencil and quickly put it through the top of the ball so that the tab is on the top. You want to do this part quickly so that the picture does not remain very curled. You WILL, however have to still straighten it out some.

4. I could not get a picture of this next step as I needed both of my hands, but hopefully it will not be that confusing. Take 2 toothpicks and put them through the top of the ball. If you actually cross the toothpicks so that they make an "X", you can push on them simultaneously to straighten out the picture.

5. Once the picture is straightened, put the top back on the ball. Add some pretty ribbon and ad it to your tree!

Another suggestion was to use a paint marker to write the date on the back, but I didn't like that idea. But, you definitely could do that. You could also do 2 pictures together, back to back so you have a 2-sided ball.

The creativity is up to you. I just love it. Thank you, Jess for such a wonderful idea!