I gathered up piles of beautiful shells in South Padre last week so I’ll be sharing a few fun craft ideas with you over the next few weeks. A few days ago I shared a collection of crafty shell ideas and today I want to show you the Christmas ornament souvenir I made to remind us of this year’s beach trip. Every year when we hang this on the tree, we’ll be reminded of our fun summer trip!
I started with a flat glass ornament found at my local craft store and filled it with small shells and some of my favorite broken pieces {and a few specks of sand that snuck in}. Sand would also be a great way to fill the ornament and so would sea glass!
I used a Sharpie to write our vacation destination and year on a strip of white muslin fabric …
… then tied it, along with a few strands torn from burlap, onto the top of the ornament.
I love this beachy little Christmas ornament souvenir and I love that when we get it out every Christmas, we’ll remember our fun family vacation in South Padre.
For more ideas for easy handmade Christmas ornaments, be sure to take a peek at these embroidery hoop santa Christmas ornaments …
… wooden wood burned cross stitch ornaments …
… and cute gum-filled ornaments that make sweet stocking stuffers!
I love making ornaments with Shells! This is so cute, I love the burlap with the place and year. ~Sonya
What a beautiful ornament. What a great way to remember an event. I love it!
Love this ornament – so creative and pretty and personalized! Just wanted to let you know I featured your post in my roundup of glass ornament crafts here. Feel free to check it out if you want and hope you like it! : )
-Mel the Crafty Scientist
I didn’t find all those different shells on that beach. Did you buy them from a shop? I got lots of shells, however, they were all the same.
Okay ignore my questions. Lucky you finding all those different shells. Did you get up early in the morning before they comb the beach?
We found a lot of them in the water. We seemed to have better luck with that than on the beach. We’d feel large shells with our feet and reach down to pick them up.
how large does the clear ball have to be to have the seashells fit. i have small shells but they do not fit into the hole at the top of the ball. the shells in this ball look at least as big as the ones i have. the mints in the one ball also look pretty large to get into the hole at the top. luv the idea of putting these shells into the ball
This ornament has a very standard size opening … no more than half an inch. I used super small shells and pieces of large shells and just carefully shoved them through that opening. Hope that helps!
I love this idea so much! Our family really enjoys having personalized tree ornaments that bring back memories, so this is just perfect! I just might start doing this sort of thing for every vacation we take! 🙂 Lisa
Isn’t the ornament too heavy to hang on a branch without the top popping off? It’s glass and has a lot of shells in it…
No, the shells are pretty light and it’s never had the top pop off.