Card - Ornament - Trash Transformed!

This year, I thought I'd make an ornament from recycled materials I had an abundance of.

So I had:

• juice can lids
• straws
• old Christmas cards
• paper ream banding ribbons
  
• burnt out Christmas light bulbs
• little bits of ribbon
  

It was great for a Christmas card / small gift for giving out to people. I hope they liked them.

I used:

• Glue guns - I used both Hi-Temperature (uses the fat glue sticks)

& Low-Temperature (uses the skinny glue sticks)

• Hot glue sticks
• Scissors
• Compass (for drawing a circle)
• Some thin cardboard (from a cereal or cracker box - look in your recycle bin)
• Piece of rigid plastic (like from packaging - look in your recycle bin)
• Ruler or Measuring tape
• Old Christmas cards
• 1" Wide Ribbon - I used binding ribbon that packs of paper are wrapped in

(I rescued them from the office bins)

• Narrow Ribbon or string
  
• Plastic straws (these ones had been used & rinsed - I liked the red stripes)
• Metal juice can lids
• Pom pom / jingle bell / button / bead
  
• Burnt out Mini lights
• Red spray paint

The ribbon was 1-1/8" (3cm) width, so to make a little cone-shape,

I wrapped it around my finger to find that each piece needed to be

this length. 2-1/2" (6cm)

• Glue the little cone using a low temperature glue
  
• Make 10 for each one.
• Glue the cones together edge-to-edge

To Do The Back:

• Use a protractor to draw the right size circle that will fit into the recessed edge of the metal lid.
• Once you out the right-sized paper circle, make 2 templates- (See Pic 2)
  

1 of thin cardboard (cereal/cracker box)

1 of thin,see-thru rigid plastic (cookie/toy package)

• Use the see-thru template to find the "perfect image"

from your old Christmas cards (See pic 3 - you could use a photo too!)

• Cut out your circle picture

• Take a little remnant of ribbon (this will make a hinge) (See Pic 4)
  

and hot glue half of it to the top back of your circle picture

the other half, hot glue to the juice can lid (use hi-temp glue here)

• Use the cardboard template, make 1 paper circle and glue to lid (use hi-temp glue here)
  

Tip: Write your special message on this before gluing it

I had scrapped several mini light sets of Christmas lights because the
bulbs were all burnt out (just twist them, and they come right out)

• Trim off any little wires with wire cutters.

• Hot-glue them to an old piece of cardboard and spray-paint them red.

It took a couple of days to dry properly because it's winter here.

• When dry, just pick em off (or run your hand across them & they all lay down- easy!)

and pick the glue blob off. You'll need 10 per ornament.

Here's a picture of each step:

• Glue a ribbon loop on the juice can lid (use hi-temp hot glue here).
• Glue on the ribbon flower from Step 2 (use hi-temp hot glue here).
  
• Glue on a pom-pom / jingle bell/ button/ bead in middle.
  
• Glue a little mini light inside each "cone" (use hi-temp hot glue here).
  
• Cut a straw into small pieces that are long enough to cover each "cone's" seam (aprox 1" or 2.5cm).

-Glue them (use lo-temp hot glue here)

• Trim each straw at an angle so they have a pointy tip.
  

• Glue sequins around the top edge of each "cone" (use lo-temp hot glue here)

Tip: To pick up a sequin easily, use a pencil with a NEW eraser

- Moisten the eraser with a damp sponge...(or your tongue!)

- Put a blob of (low temp) glue on the "cone" first, then apply the sequin - easy!

My Grandmother passed away and I got her 70's costume jewelry nobody wanted, you'll see a lot of it here. My mum gave me her AWESOME box of harvested buttons. (everyone's mother had a jar of these - old buttons from clothes)

My friend Cindy wanted to make something from juice can lids, so I made her some ...and I kept going! These lid ornaments have been really fun!

I've made more than a hundred different variations of the juice can lid ornament / cards

They're all so different - See if you can identify the re-purposed materials in each one.

:)