Cheap to Choice: Fun with Shiny Brites

This is a guest post by Lara Hightower.

So. It’s not too early to do a holiday project, right? I mean, growing up, my family never acknowledged the holiday season until December 1st, and we never got our Christmas tree until a week or two before Christmas, but now that I’m out from under the evil clutches of my repressive parents I figure I can decorate whenever I want to. (Kidding, Mom and Dad!)

The photo above on the left is but a small portion of the crazy collection of vintage and new Christmas ornaments I’ve amassed over the years. My husband and I go home to Arkansas for Christmas, so we don’t even get a tree…these beauties have been collecting dust on a shelf. Yet I can’t stop buying them.

My favorites, of course, are the vintage Shiny Brites.

Anyone who loves ornaments loves Shiny Brites. And a stack of boxes like those in the photo above, so promising, so secretive (anything could be inside there! who knows the bounty that awaits!) is enough to send me into an estate sale-induced asthma attack.

When I saw a vintage ornament wreath in a magazine layout, I realized that it was a perfect way to showcase my lovely collection. And it turned out to be really easy. So easy that I may just turn into crazy-ornament-wreath lady.

1. Start with a wreath form from a craft store — I got mine from Michael’s for about $5. You don’t want one of the soft ones that are meant to have things stuck in them — get one of the green, solid ones.

2. Using ribbon, cover the entire wreath so that if you get a peek of the wreath base through the ornaments, it won’t look gross and green. I like to use the plastic-y, outdoor ribbon made for wreath hanging, because it stretches really well and I think that the ornaments adhere better to it rather than satin ribbon. You won’t really see the ribbon once the wreath is finished, so don’t spend a whole lot of money on this — it takes a lot of ribbon to cover the whole thing. Use a hot glue gun and do it in sections (in other words, cut shorter lengths of ribbon instead of trying to wrap it using one long length of ribbon) so that you can pull it really tight. Any wrinkles or bumps will interfere with the ornaments getting a good bond with the ribbon.

3. This is the hardest part for me. Actually applying the glue to the ornaments makes me so nervous! And they were so happy, weren’t they, tucked away in their little boxes?  But push through, make yourself do it. It helps to use your least-favorite ornaments for this first part — they’re not going to show much once you start piling the ornaments on, so sometimes I’ll even use newer bulbs for this part. With the hot glue gun, glue a ring of ornaments to the outside edge of the wreath, as shown above. Always keep in mind that the wreath needs to look attractive from the sides, not just the front, so take a look at that vantage point every now and then as you go along. Try and lay out the balls so you can see if they’re going to fit evenly around the outside — you don’t want to get to the last spot and not have an ornament that will fit in there. When gluing, you should look to create a bond between the ornaments and the wreath in as many places as possible for maximum security.

4. Once you’ve got the outer ring finished, start on the inside. These ornaments aren’t going to fit around the wreath form in a nice even way like the outside — so just glue them in there as attractively as possible, kind of puzzle-piecing them together. Again, these are going to get covered up by your flashier ornaments, so you can use the ugly duckling ornaments for this layer.

5. Last is the most fun — pick out your fanciest Shiny Brites and place them front and center. Don’t glue them in place until you’ve laid them out to see what works best. I’ve made that mistake. Trust me, it’s not pretty.

There you have it — glittery, shiny fun for everyone!

Lara Hightower is an avid collector of all things Shiny and Brite. You can read more about her obsessions on her blog, Pretty. Quirky.