Quick and Easy DIY "Fine Art" Ornament

I don't even know how I found out about this here ornament exchange, hmmm, maybe it was on twitter of all places but yes, I found a crafty blogger ornament exchange and was assigned a partner and here we are, with a DIY "Fine Art" Ornament that I whipped up this past week! My swap partner for this round is Chelc Fox of Inside the Fox Den and after checking out her blog and got an idea of the type of decor she might appreciate, I decided that a handpainted ornament would be perfect for our blossoming friendship! I started with some plain plastic "Decorate your own" ornaments from Michael's (and I saw some smaller ones at Dollar Tree as well). The simplicity of this DIY is you basically need the ornament, a primary color acrylic paint, white acrylic paint and a paint brush. It's so simple and affordable!

I started by painting the entirety of the ornament with the purple metallic craft paint that I picked out. It definitely took two coats to cover (I let one dry then painted again) and wanted to make sure that the ornament was completely covered and you're not able to see through it, unless of course you like the look of it!

While the second coat was still wet, I dipped my brush in the white paint. In order to create the end effect, I swiped the brush lightly back and forth, side to side, dipping the brush back in the white paint when the needed. There's the chance that you could go overboard so I found that starting slow helped me edit myself to create the perfect combination of purple to white. It's really as easy as brushing over a couple of times and letting dry!


I enjoyed myself so much and these are so easy to make that I created a whole collection and even switched up the colors to a light peachy pink on another batch. Chelc was expecting one ornament and she may have gotten four! I just picked up a few more ornaments to play around with the kids because I think this is a really great way to customize and curate your own tree by creating ornaments catered directly to your colors and style!

I'd love to hear if you guys have created anything like this or you've made it a custom or tradition to decorate ornaments in your house-- I think I have found something fun to do with my kids annually, cute right?

Don't miss the rest of our blog posts with tons of DIY ornament tutorials for every type of holiday style and theme-- I know we all had a great time creating!