Watercolor Ornaments
Watercolor ornaments are a great way to create a unique keepsake. They allow you to share an original piece of art that you can enjoy year after year without having to hang it up on your wall. I love homemade gifts, so I thought I would share two types of watercolor ornaments I have created.
Wooden Round Ornaments
This project was born out of wanting to make gifts signifying important events that happened in the past year (2022). I made ornaments commemorating a friend purchasing their first house, my brother coming to visit me for the first time in Colorado, and to commemorate a trip to Glacier National Park that my husband and I took.
These ornaments are created through a mutli-step process where a watercolor painting is affixed to a new surface, in this case a wooden round. Wooden rounds can be purchased online or at a local craft store. They come in a variety of sizes, types of wood, and finishes. For my watercolor ornaments, I went even more DIY and used a log that my husband collected on a hike. It was a bit more labor intensive to cut and sand the rounds (done by my husband), but the overall aesthetic was worth it. Our only concern was how the rounds would last over time. Wooden rounds from the store have already been dried sufficiently so you do not have to worry about bugs, rot, or cracking. Time will tell, but the ornaments have already lasted a year with no issues.
For these ornaments, I painted a series of circle paintings three inches in diameter. I used a compass to create the circles. After a little experimentation, I found that the circles were easier to paint if I cut them out at the end instead of trying to paint on a pre-cut circle. To protect the paintings long term, I applied a layer of Dorland’s Wax Medium to each circular painting once it was finished and before cutting it to size. I experimented on a test painting and found that it was easiest to apply the wax evenly using just my clean fingers in a circular motion. After applying the wax, I allowed the wax to cure for about 24 hours. The result was a bit of a matt finish after drying, but by buffing with a clean cloth, you could make it a bit glossier. The wax medium will protect the watercolor paintings from dust and make them water resistant. If you drop some water on your coated watercolor painting it slides right off!
Once the paintings were finished it was time to cut them out carefully and to add a hole punch at the top of each painting where the ribbon would go later. I created a template to make it easier to hole punch the paintings and determine where to drill a hole on the round.
To affix the watercolor paintings to the wooden rounds, I use Golden Gloss Medium, which is often used as a collage medium. I made sure that the wooden rounds were free from dust by using a wet cloth and letting them dry fully. Then I used an older paint brush to apply a thin layer of the gloss medium to the back of the watercolor painting before carefully centering it on the wooden round. Finally, I used a rubber roller to roll out any air bubbles and a damp paintbrush to remove any excess medium. Once the ornaments were dry I added a length of red ribbon.
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Glass Framed Ornaments
These glass framed ornaments are made using a mini wall hanging frame. I found these particular ones on Amazon. This project was born out of wanting to create a keepsake of my first car. I’m in the process of purchasing a new car before the end of the year, which will mean saying goodbye to Bubble, my 2009 Toyota Yaris that I purchased when I was still only in college. That car got me through a lot! Lots of memories with friends, drives up and down the east coast, camping adventures, a cross country move stuffed to the brim, and miles transporting my bike around. I knew it was going to be a bit emotional to say goodbye. I decided that a car portrait might be a good way to remember my first trusty car, but I knew it wasn’t something I wanted hanging on my wall in perpetuity. An ornament seemed like the perfect compromise.
To create this kind of ornament, the biggest challenge was to get my subject down to scale. This frame is only 2 x 3 inches, which is quite small. I waited until I actually had the small frames in hand to make sure that I knew the exact internal dimensions before I started painting. I also worked on creating an outline that then could resize to whatever size I ultimately decided on, which ended up being a bit smaller than 2 x 3.
Similar to the paintings for the wooden round ornaments, I worked on a larger piece of watercolor paper to paint and then trimmed down the painting to the exact dimensions I needed. This actually proved to be a bit difficult and I wasn’t able to trim the paper perfectly using my usual tools of a rotary cutter and fabric ruler (don’t worry, I separate rotary cutters for paper and for fabric - quilters will understand), but I have ideas for how to improve next time. Since the frame is glass on both sides, I added a note to the back of the painting. Close up the ornament and you are good to go, which was a much simpler process than finishing up the wooden rounds. I made a second ornament using a photograph from our recent trip to Scotland of the Glencoe valley. This painting doubled as a mini test of a larger painting I would like to do of this reference photo. For my finishing touches I replaced the included chain with a length of ribbon.
Are you doing anything DIY this holiday season?
Check out my process videos over on Instagram for the wooden ornaments and the glass frame ornaments.