Silver Starburst Ornament

It's Day 4 of 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments and I'm excited to share the tutorial for a silver starburst ornament with you today! If you're new to the series, start here with Day 1.

Each year, I fill my Christmas tree with a collection of silver ornaments that my parents gave me each year growing up and I LOVE the look of them against the green needles of the tree. So when I was brainstorming ideas for ornaments for this series, I knew I wanted to make some that were silver to fit in with the other ornaments. This silver starburst definitely fits in with that!



Here's how I did it:

Supplies:

• Styrofoam balls - 2 inch size (mine are from Michael's*)
• Mini wood dowels (also from Michael's*)
• Glue (optional)
• Silver spray paint
• String or twine
• Hot glue

This ornament is really simple to make.

Step 1: Push dowels into styrofoam balls
Step 2: Spray paint the whole thing

See? That's it!

Ok, so I do have a few tips and photos to share besides those two steps, but that's the general gist. You can stop here if that's good enough for you ;).

To keep the ornament looking balanced and symmetrical, I stuck two dowels into the foam ball opposite one another as a starting point. Once I put those in, I realized that the foam seems to crumble a little bit and isn't awesome at keeping the dowels attached and steady. I was a little worried they'd fall out, so I decided to try and dip the tip of the dowel in Mod Podge before I pushed it into the foam ball. I'm hoping that will give the ornament some durability. So far so good!

I worked my way around the foam ball until I had eight evenly spaced dowels around the circumference. This first layer was really helpful in keeping the spacing looking good as I added the rest of the dowels.

Before things got too crowded on the foam ball, I hot glued a loop of baker's twine onto the ornament so I'd be able to hang it easily.

Then I soldiered on adding more dowels...

Once I was satisfied with the density of the dowels (photo above), I took the ornament outside and spray painted it silver. I made sure to turn it all different directions for even paint coverage. That's it!

I wasn't sure I'd be into the rough texture of the foam ball once it was spray painted, but I actually love it. I think it adds some really nice dimension to the ornament!

If I wasn't making 11 other ornaments for this series, I'd totally make a dozen more of these. I really like how this one turned out!

Check out the other 11 projects from Day 3 below! Give these bloggers a shout and tell them how awesome their ornaments are.

Rustic Twig Wreath Ornament | Mom 4 Real

Silver Starburst Ornament | May Richer Fuller Be

Chalkboard Paint Ornament | It All Started With Paint

Holographic Glittered Ornament | The Happier Homemaker

DIY Feather Ball | Bigger Than The Three of Us

Rustic Jingle Bell Ornament | Cherished Bliss

Wine Cork Reindeer Ornament | Remodelando la Casa

Clay Snowflake Ornament | Lovely Etc.

Vintage Style Bottle Brush Tree | Serendipity Refined

Jute Ball Ornament | Thrifty and Chic

Glitter Swirl Ornament | Whats Ur Home Story

Princess Elsa Ornament | All Things G&D

*Disclosure: Some of the products used in this post were purchased with a gift card which I received from Michaels. The ideas and opinions expressed in this post are my own. Thank you, Michaels, for supporting my craftiness!