Learn how to make floating ornaments with a twist! By adding glitter inside the ornament, they can light up on your Christmas tree this holiday season!
I’m so excited to share this new homemade ornament that came to me as I was trying to fall asleep last week!
I wanted to combine my love for glitter ornaments with floating ornaments and also some movement, so I came up with these super cute and easy glitter floating ornaments!
The best part is that you can turn these into custom DIY ornaments to give as DIY gifts, at an ornament exchange party, or just as part of your Christmas decorations.
I am using my Cricut machine to cut out the floating images, but you could also cut any image out of cardstock with some scissors if you don’t have a cutting machine.
Tips for DIY Glitter Floating Ornaments
While most of the other floating ornaments use a single ball ornament that a rolled acetate sheet is stuck into, this sparkling ornament is going to use two-sided fillable dome ornaments (great way to use up the extra from the dome candy holders!)
Which Side of the Fillable Ornament to Add Glitter On
The most important tip for making these ornaments is to make sure to add the glitter to the B side of the two sided ornaments.
The box will come with a pack of A domes and B domes that fit together.
They differ on where the groove is. On the B side, the groove or bevel is on the outside which is what you want!
You can slide your finger over the inside edge of the B side and it’s smooth (which is what we want so the Mod Podge and glitter don’t get stuck in the groove).
Thread Vs. Fishing Wire
So there are a couple of different ways I made these beautiful ornaments because I wanted to give you some different options in how they turn out.
For a few of the Christmas floating ornaments, I used a thin fishing line to suspend the Christmas image in the center of the plastic bauble ornament and also tried just having the wire on the top of the image and then also having both the top and bottom of the wire secured in the ornament.
Using the fishing line just secured on the top of the ornament secured the image in the center with a little bobble.
If I secured the fishing wire to the top and bottom of the bauble, the cut-out didn’t move at all (no little bobble if nudged). However, I didn’t end up liking this look, so I opened the ornaments back up and snipped off the bottom wire (you can see this in my video at the bottom!)
Then for some of the other ornaments, I used just sewing thread that matched the color of glitter inside, and that actually created a spinning ornament if I secured both the top and bottom!
So if the plastic ornaments are nudged the inside floating image will spin around, so cool, right??!!
If I only secured the top of the ornament, the floating image moves around and not always in the the center.
I’d recommend trying both methods along with having the line secured only at the top and also secured at both the top and bottom to see which end product you like best!
I’ll go over my findings for all the ways I tried to help you get started in the YouTube video below too! The way you glitter the ornament and secure it are the same so we’ll go through that step by step.
Best Product to Glitter Ornaments
I tried a few different ways to glitter half of the ornaments.
The first way was with a thin layer of Mod Podge. This method was definitely my favorite and gave the best results!
I ended up doing two layers of fine glitter for the white, silver, and gold ornaments and one layer of a cool aqua sparkle embossing powder! Think outside the box and see what works!
With the white glittered ornaments, the light from the tree could shine through which looked really cool. The other colors were harder to see the floating image when it was dark.
I also tried using Polycrylic since this is what I recommend to use when making full glitter ornaments.
This way is pretty messy and ended up causing rings inside the ornament because of gravity pulling the glitter down in the solution while drying.
Then I also tried just pouring in Mod Podge and rotating it around to cover the inside of the plastic ornament. Then added the glitter and turned it over to dry.
Not the effect I was going for and a thick layer of glitter ended up on the edge.
Ok, let’s start Christmas crafting!
How to Make Glitter Floating Ornaments the Easy Way!
Make a custom floating or spinning ornament with glitter on the backside using your favorite cutting machine!
Materials
Instructions
- Since the glitter takes an hour or two to dry, the first step is to add glitter to half of the ornament. You'll want to make sure you are adding a thin layer of Mod Podge in long strokes on the inside of the B side of the ball ornament. Just like we did in my snowman glitter tutorial.
- Once it's completely covered, dump some glitter into the ball.
- I like to put a funnel inside my glitter container to catch the excess glitter. So once I put the funnel in the container, I start to rotate the half dome around to make sure the glitter covers all of the Mod Podge.
- To get the edges, I rotate the Mod Podge ornament on its side as the glitter falls out enter the funnel. Make sure to watch this part in the video, if it doesn't make sense!
- Turn the glittered half ornament over and tap on it to release the extra glitter.
- Let it dry for about an hour or two.
- You can be done here or add another layer of glitter. I think the second layer helps to hide some of the brush marks. Before adding Mod Podge again, use a clean dry paint brush and brush the inside of the ornament to remove any glitter that didn't glue down.
- Then apply another thin layer of Mod Podge on top of the glitter.
- Repeat the steps above of pouring glitter on top of the Mod Podge, rotating it around and dumping out the excess. Then let it dry for another hour. Here are a few different colors I made. White glitter, silver glitter, and even a turquoise embossing powder!
- Now it's time to work on the floating images. In Cricut Design Space, find images that you want to put inside your ornament (I found all these SVG cut files in Cricut Access but had to purchase the Tweety Bird and Buddy the Elf digital files, but aren't they sooo cute??!!). My ornaments are 3 inches, so I sized all my images under 2.5 inches on the long side to make sure they had room to bobble or rotate.
- Then you want the same image on the backside, so click on the duplicate button in the top right. We also need the mirror image to line up perfectly with each other, so then click on Flip and Flip Horizontally. See Notes below if you are working with text!
- You will have two images to cut out for each ornament that are mirror images of each other. Click on Make It and follow on-screen prompts to cut out the images.
- Since these images are small make sure you are using a nice sticky mat and a newer sharp fine point blade in your Cricut! I used the intricate setting for cardstock to cut the images with small detail.
- If your SVG files have multiple layers, assemble each image so that when glued back to back they align (mirror images).
- The next step is to glue a piece of thread the same color as your glitter so it doesn't show or a thin fishing line down the middle backside of one of the images. If the wire moves, you might need to tape it down and then glue.
- Place the mirror cut out image on top of the glue, lining it up, and press down to secure the sides together.
- I like to insert the top of the thread into the loop.
- Then tape it on the top side to hold it in place.
- Depending on if you want the image to bobble or spin around, you can trim off the thread/wire at the bottom of the image or center it over the bottom rim.
- Then add the A side of the ball ornament and secure the two sides together.
- Remove the tape and trim off the string that is sticking out.
- Add a ribbon and they are ready to gift or to hang up!
Notes
If you want to personalize the image with text, you might not want to put the text on the back side (because it will be backward) or flip the text back over within the image so that it's the correct way.
I go over this in the video tutorial below so make sure to watch all these steps in action!
More Floating Ornament Ideas
I went over this quickly in the video above too, so make sure to watch it if this seems confusing!
I also used a print then cut image and acetate sheet to make a spinning ornament with glitter inside.
I found this cute red truck image in CDS and sized it down to about 2.5 inches, then duplicated it and Flipped Horizontally.
I also added a 2.7 inch circle shape and cut it out of a clear acetate sheet.
On my home printer, I printed the image using print and cut and printable vinyl, then had my Cricut cut around the image using the registration marks.
Peel off the printable vinyl sticker and place on one side of the acetate circle. Lay down a piece of coordinating thread in the middle of the opposite side (I used silver since my glitter background was silver), and adhere the mirrored image sticker directly on top.
Center the acetate circle with string directly over the glittered side of the bauble, and tape in place. Then attach the front side of the ornament on.
So pretty! This turned into a fun DIY spinning ornament!
So fun, right??!! I love it when a new idea that I have comes out just like I wanted it too!
And I don’t even have a favorite, all of the floating and spinning glitter DIY ornaments came out so cute! But I do always have a soft spot for Buddy the Elf and Tweety!
If you’d like to save this tutorial on making floating ornaments with glitter, simply hover over the image below and PIN It now!
Thanks so much for stopping by and Merry Christmas!