Ocean Ornaments Tutorial

To make a beautiful Ocean Ornament of your own, you will need:

Paint-- white and shades of blue

Paint brushes

Sponge

Flat ornament-- glass or plastic.  I bought mine at Michaels

Sand-- I brought some home from the beach, but any craft store should have sand.

Strong Glue (Optional)

 First paint your horizon 1/3 of the way down on the ornament.  

 Paint a line below the horizon in a different shade of blue.

 Continue painting lines in different shades of blue to create your ocean.  Use your sponge to create the tide about 2/3 down from the top of the ornament.  

Fill your ornament 1/3 full with sand.   

Optional: You can put a small amount of strong glue to the cap of the ornament to permanantly seal it closed.  This will avoid any sand spillage when you store it away for next year!  

I have a Martha Stewart stencil that says "Merry Christmas" -- you could stencil or paint a holiday sentiment or maybe the name of the beach your sand is from.  

Post pictures of your ornaments on Mister G's Facebook page or twitter @MisterGandMe 

Merry Christmas!!  

Holiday Wreath

I have seen so many beautiful holiday wreaths floating around online.  All the inspiration was making me (and Mister G) pretty excited to make one!! 

I gave my wreath a lot of thought before getting started.  I wanted my wreath to be festive-- but also not too classic Christmas.  I was envisioning something "ocean-y" since it's our first Christmas living in a warm climate.  I also came up with the genius idea to incorporate Marquette colors into the wreath to get John excited about it!  (Pretty easy because Marquette baby blue is very ocean-y and also gold is very Christmas-y!)

I picked up a lot of holiday jazz at Micael's--by the way, now is a great time to get a deal on wreath fixins!  I chose golds, silvers, blues, and greens.  When I came home Mister G was nipping at the bag and trying to play with the picks.  

Remember when I made the homemade holiday ornanments?  While I was spray-painting my baby pine cones for the ornaments, I also painted a few big shells gold.    

The big shells needed special help to stay on the wreath.  I cut a piece of yarn and hot glued it to the back of the shell.  One big glob in the center and a line to each side to help the shells lay flat.

After the glue dried, I arranged the shells and tied the yarn tightly around the wreath.  Then I added the rest of my items.  It gets pretty windy at times here-- so I used a dab of hot glue on the bottoms of each pick before I stuck them into the wreath.

I love the sea urchin looking flowers next to the poinsettia!  If you take a close look you will see some baby pine cones too.  

I don't have a wreath hanger yet, so until I pick one up the wreath will be hanging under our house numbers.  See her to the left?

Have you made a wreath this year?  Plans to make one?  Share your pictures on Mister G's Facebook page or Twitter @MisterGandMe .