{Craft Tutorial} Adding Special Touches to Store-Bought Christmas Ornaments

I bought this plain galvanized metal star at Michael's as an impulse buy (sorry, I didn't take a photo of just the plain star I bought).  I think it was $2.99 and I had a coupon.  I didn't have any plan for what to do with it, but I liked it and I knew it could be made into something special.

Then dumb luck and some inspiration hit:

1.  When we were hanging our wreath over our mantle, my husband had to trim a little piece of branch off of our fake pine wreath.  I knew I could use this pine piece to add a little color and holiday cheer to my metal star.

2.  I also knew I had a rusty brown bell somewhere in my craft supplies.  I dug out the bell, ran some wire through it, wrapped it around my pine pieces, and strung it through a hole in the galvanized star.

3.  Then I looked through my bits and pieces of artificial flowers and found some red berries that had fallen off something or other.  I nestled those in among my pine pieces and hot glued them in place.

Total time for this endeavor: about 7 minutes.

So then I had a pretty, dressed up ornament, but didn't really know what to do with it (since we don't have a Christmas tree).  But I decorate our mantle with framed Christmas stuff, so I thought of hanging this ornament in a frame.

I grabbed the closest frame, which was this shiny fake silver frame.  I took out the glass and backing stuff so I had just the rectangular frame.  Then I wired my ornament so that it was hanging in the center of this frame.  This worked really well, but when I put it on my mantle, it got kind of lost.

So Plan B - I left my star still in the center of my frame, but put the backing material back in it, including the corrugated cardboard filler.  This turned out to be the perfect backing for my little ornament.  I think the cardboard perfectly compliments the rustic look of this galvanized metal star.

I probably need to look through my other frames and see if I have a wooden frame that would look better with my star, but for now, I like it.  I'm glad I bought this little beauty!