Ballard Designs Inspired Alphabet Ornaments by Ali at Honey and Maple Syrup {Ornament No.15}

I’m delighted to introduce
our next guest blogger
Ali from Honey and Maple Syrup

Ballard Inspired Alphabet Balls
{Handmade Ornament No. 15}Welcome…Ali!

Hi! My name is Ali from Honey and Maple Syrup.

If you’ve never visited me before, here are some of the projects you will find on my lil blog.

I’m SO excited to be here today and want say a HUGE thank you to Stephanie Lynn for giving me the opportunity to share my ornament with you guys.

Christmas is my absolute most fave time of the year! Hot cocoa, fresh baked cookies, watching Christmas movies (love Elf!), spending time with family, and those comforting traditions that give you the warm and fuzzies. One of those traditions I have always loved is decorating the Christmas tree. I just think it’s amazing that it always starts out with a regular ol’ tree, yet you can create so many different looks with all the different trimmings.

Last year, I was flipping through the Ballard Designs’ catalog when I happened upon these beauties…

{photo credit: Ballard Designs}

They definitely aren’t your typical red and green ornaments and I just love how bold they are, but there was no way I was about to drop $69 for 26 ornaments. Fortunately, they are super duper simple to make yourself and I’m about to show you how.

Start out with a pack of clear glass ornaments.

I got these from Michael’s when they were 40% off.

I chose to go with a warm white paint, but any shade of white would do, and cream would look nice if you are going for more of an antique look.

TIP: Each bottle of paint will cover 3-4 ornaments, so make sure you stock up!

You can paint the outside with primer and spray paint, but I wanted them to look super glossy, like ceramic, so I chose to paint the inside. To do so, just squirt a big ol’ glob of paint into the ornament, then hold it almost upside down, rotating the ornament until the inside is completely covered with paint..

And you’ll end up with something like this.

I chose this pack of letters ($5 at Michael’s) because the backs are sticky so you don’t have to worry about the mess of glue…Oh, and because there are 15 of each letter which leaves plenty o’ room for mistakes =)

Another option would be to use rub-on letters.

If you want to do a simplified version of Ballard’s ornaments, you can just do 1 letter in the center (see photo below), which would look really nice if you use a fancier font.

But if you don’t mind spending a little more time on the ornaments, you can stagger the letters (like what I did), using a total of 6 letters per ornament.

TIP: Some of the letters (Like B & D) are hard to smooth out on the rounded surface, but a little bit of glue (I used E6000) will do the trick!

The last thing I did was paint the tops black to match the letters.

And here is the final product…

I think these ornaments would look great paired with tags, each stamped with a family members’ name on it. Or black and white photos of the family, backed with white cardstock.

I hope you enjoyed this super easy tutorial and will try these out for yourself!

Thank you Ali! I adore typography and these are fabulous! I really like how you staggard the letters – plus I actually like the thicker letters a little better {oh, and I like the burlap ribbon on your tree too!} Fantastic Job!

There is one more ornament to share today which will be coming up shortly ~ In between turkey time I hope you’ll stop by Honey and Maple Syrup and pay Ali a visit.

Ali not only is an exceptional artist {see this Lighting McQueen freehanded painting she made}; she can also create a killer knockoff like these Pottery Barn Inspired Airplane Panels. A.maze.ing!

and this Pottery Barn Inspired Cubby Organizer {fabulous}