Homemade Glass Ball Ornaments

Step 1: Materials

Materials:

1. Glass or Plastic Ornament Balls

2. Paint.
~used to fill the ornament inside
~used to design your ornament outside

3. Clear Krylon
~used for sealing the ornament

4. Glitter, stickers, ect (optional)
~used for decorating

5. Paper cups (optional)
~used to catch the paint drip from the ornaments

Comments

[calicos]

I've been painting on all surfaces for years and one thing I always do is to clean the surface (or in this case, the inside) before applying paint. My best success is rubbing alcohol. That removes residuals oils, chemicals, treatments, etc. And yes, also follow MsSunDragon's advice on using the glass paints. They now cost only a little more than the regular acrylics. My favorite is Folk Arts, but I've used them all and they all work good on glass.

[MsSunDragon]

If you use the folkart paint for glass and ceramic items, it should work great on or in the glass ornaments. It is formulated to work on glass. It is in the regular acrylic paint section but is specifically for glass and ceramics. I didn't have that problem using them in the ones I've painted over the years.

[sailormoon22491]

Ahh thank you, ill have to look into it ^^

[l8nite]

as an artist and crafter Ive worked with many mediums over the years, including glass and ceramics. Doing the ornaments has to be the most aggravating Ive encountered, the paint adheres to the outsides woith no problem but pulls away from the inside, it really sucked because some of the ornaments had really cool swirl patterns. I don't know if its because the paint shrinks slightly as it dries and so pulls off the curved surface or what but even the various acrylic additives didn't help, at least for me. Model paints worked but they are expensive and like I said before, Rustoleum works, its kind of expensive but you don't use much so a small can will do a lot or ornaments. What kind of paints did you use ? Did you use any additives?

[sailormoon22491]

Well for the sample ones we used paint we had lying around the house and used several coats on the inside. We did encounter the problem you spoke of with our white paint but after using a couple of coats we see no problems to date. Our green paint, I'm not sure what brand it was but it worked beautifully and stayed on strong.

[l8nite]

those are really cute ! I did a similar project a few years ago and had all kinds of problems getting the acrylic paint to stick to the inside of the ornament (both glass and plastic) I thought I had the problem solved but the following year the insides were cracked/crazed with the paint shrinking away from the inner surface. Refusing to be beaten I used rustoleum inside a new batch and so far they seem to be holding up (3yrs) Hope you have better luck and thankyou for sharing your "ible" and great pictures

[sailormoon22491]

Yes i did noticed that some paint did not adhere to the glass ornaments as well as it did to the plastic, i think it all depends on the type of paint you get and what surfaces it says it is good for. My dad actually warned me and my mom that some paints aren't good for glass because over time the acids could actually eat through the glass and cause crack-age. It's possible you used a type of paint that wasn't good for glass?
Honestly though, I enjoy using plastic ornaments just because their safer in the long run. We have cats, so our tree tends to be knocked down at least once x.x