#4 Glittery Animal Christmas Ornaments

#4 Glittery Animal Christmas Ornaments

pinned from: www.curbly.com

My bf is obsessed with marine life.....  we have season passes the GA Aquarium, we've gotten in the water with the Belugas, and he's swam in the big tank with the whale sharks.  He LOVES them and often feels he's missed his calling to be a marine biologist.  So, when I saw this project, all I could think of was doing a tree of all aquatic creatures for his bedroom. And the search begins....

What scared me was, if you look at curbly's directions, it mentions drilling into the little animals but I was willing to give it a go.  I was happy to find a tube of aquatic animals (brand name: TOOB) that were a softer plastic than what the original post used, but also more expensive at $7.99. (They also had a jungle tube and dinosaur tube.) Then, I went to the hardware store for the eye screws.  Of course I didn't know they were called eye screws and proceeded to make the Home Depot helper laugh as I tried to explain what I wanted, which included me using my hands to show him the loop at the top......

As I sat down to get started, terrified at the idea of drilling into the tiny animals, and a miracle happened.... I found I could hand screw them into the toy animals.... YAY!  Totally worth the extra cost and blister from screwing them in by hand. 

Success, so far!  Next step, spray paint.  I got a blue and a blue glitter top coat.  This part was time consuming just because you have to wait and let the pain dry then flip it over and do the other side and I did 2 coats of the regular blue and one coat of glitter.  I honesty did this over a week because the paint was tacky, which I think was because of the soft rubbery plastic.  I won't lie that I was a little concerned.  But, if finally stopped being tacky when I put the glitter top coat on.


before paint



after first coat

The came out adorable!!!  Too cute!  I can't wait to put them on my 5ft white tree.  The bf questioned the glitter but I think the lights on the tree will set off the glitter nicely, plut it covers up mistakes and finger prints.

the finished product

It looks better than I could have expected and the white tree really makes the animals pop!  I'm happy with the outcome!




Now, I have to be honest, the first time I tried this, I wasn't paying attention to the kind of spray paint I bought, and I grabbed enamel, which never seemed to dry, so I had to start over.....

COST:

TOOB of animals- Michaels $7.99

Krylon Spray Paint (earth blue)- Michaels $4.98

Krylon Spray Paint (sapphire glitter) - Michaels $4.98

eye screws (2 packs of 8)-Home Depot $1.86 ea

Total: $21.67