HAPPY Holidays: Photo Transfer Ornaments

Hi, I’m Landee from Landeelu.com and I am so excited to be here for Jen’s Happy Holidays Event! So much inspiration for making this holiday season special for you and those you love! Today I want to share with you a fun project that will help you preserve those memories you are making each year and put them on display.

Christmas is so much about spending time with family and making memories. Well, that and eating so much sugar and refined flour it should be illegal. It’s also a time where lots of photos are taken but sometimes those photos don’t get out and get displayed year after year. I have been thinking that I would like to make some kind of a Christmas Memories banner or something for a while but then I got the idea to make some ornaments instead! The kids always help with the tree and it’s always amazing how so many of the Christmas ornaments have a special memory attached to them. Why not make some with some Christmas photos? I have also been dying to try out this photo transfer technique that I heard about a couple of years ago and this was the perfect project! It’s so much cooler than just mod podging a photo on (although I do love me some mod podge, no doubt on that). The image is actually TRANSFERED onto the wood. I love the look!

If you would like to make some Photo Transfer Ornaments too, this is what you’ll need:

• Wooden ornaments (found at Michaels for a couple of dollars each)
• Matte Gel Medium (found by the art supplies in your local craft store)
• White craft paint
• Christmas images you’ve had printed on a LASER printer (ink jet will not work. Kinko’s self serve printers are laser. Just put all your images onto a paper sized image in your photo editing software, put on a memory stick, and take stick to Kinko’s… the self serve machines are easy! They are 59 cents each to print). If you have wording or care about having the image a certain way, make sure you IMAGE FLIP the photos first.
• Foam brushes
• Glitter craft paint (optional)

STEP ONE: Paint your wood ornaments with your white craft paint (a lighter background is best to trasfer the photo). I distressed the edges with sandpaper. Totally optional but I love that look!

STEP TWO: Cut photos to size. Apply a coat of the GEL MEDIUM to the image side of photo.

STEP THREE: Put photo IMAGE SIDE DOWN onto ornament. Use a credit card or other burnishing tool to smooth paper down and get rid of any air bubbles. Allow to dry overnight.

STEP FOUR: Use a squirt bottle to mist water over the back of the paper. Then use finger to gently rub the paper away. You can also remove any paper that is hanging off the edge as well. Best technique is to rub paper off entire surface and allow to dry. Repeat this until you no longer see any paper remnants. It took about 4 times to get all of the paper off for me. Luckily it only takes a few minutes for it to dry. And don’t worry if you rub a little of the image off… it just adds to the charm! 🙂

STEP FIVE: Sand around edges again, if you want. Apply glitter paint to anywhere you’d like! I put it where there was snow, or there was a Christmas tree in the background, or on the plate of sprinkle cookies my son is holding in one (hard to see in these photos though). Get creative! Add twine to hang and you’re done!

I love this technique because it makes the image PART of your ornament rather than just attached to it. You can see the wood grain texture through the image and it looks so cool! I also am glad I tried it with both black and white and color images. Black and white is more “vintage” looking but I love the look of the color as well!

Thanks for reading and thank you for having me Jen! Have a wonderful Christmas season! I’d love for you to stop by my blog and follow along on my social media sites as well! We can be e-BFFs! 🙂

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Thanks Landee! What an adorable ornament idea, and it would be perfect for giving as gifts to relatives! I love this idea. Landee has amazing ideas on her blog. Here are a few I think you’ll love:

Here’s another great idea for gifts this year, use her cute Merry & Bright Printables to make this fun gift for neighbors and friends!

And if you’re looking for a great way to use up that Halloween Candy, start this Countdown to Christmas Chain idea with your kids. So fun!

And, I love this idea of dressing up your chairs for Christmas with this Christmas Chair Wreath idea! So fun!

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xoxo