The Inspiring Bee

Finding purpose in climate action.

DIY Ornaments

Yesterday I accomplished the fun and not-so-difficult challenge of creating my own ornaments. While the process was long, the actual tackling of it was easy. You won’t believe how cheap it was either. Basically, you need citrus fruits, ornament hooks, a paint brush, modge-podge, glitter and a cookie sheet.

And the results?

DIY Ornament

Pretty sweet.

You may have remembered our tree sans homemade ornament:

Christmas tree

Well after I took the above ingredients, 4 hours later my tree looked like this:

Citrus tree

Ok I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let me step back a bit.

First, I gathered a bunch of lemons. Yes they are lemons, but I keep calling them oranges cause in the end they looked a lot like their fruity cousins.

Lemons

After slicing them (I learned as uniform as possible is best since the oven will heat them differently), I placed them on a baking sheet and stuck them in the oven at 200 degrees for 3-4 hours.

Baking lemons

This is what happens when you cut some thin and some thicker. You get some dried ones, some not-so-dry ones and some scorchers.

Lemons in the oven

After leaving them out of the oven and even drying them in the sun for an hour, I grabbed a bottle of modge-podge, painted a thin coat on, dusted some Martha Stewart orange glitter (that I used for this past craft) and waited yet again.

How to make your own ornaments

I only baked a dozen or so. But they were enough to fill our itsy-bitsy tree this year.Baking lemons

Drying lemons

After hooking them with metal hooks, they were ready:

Christmas Tree

In the day, they were colorful. But at night?

Lemon Christmas tree

Simply glowing!

Christmas tree fun

Hope you all have a great Christmas! I know the season brings lots of craziness and busy-ness too, but don’t forget to take time to take care of yourself. But check back here next week. I’m preparing for the biggest giveaway I’ve ever had. Stay tuned next week to find out what it is and the easy way you can win it all.