DIY Christmas Ornament Snow Globe for Memory Keepsake
Do you have photos that you love but can’t find a meaningful way to display them? We got the perfect project for them. Make your own Christmas ornament snow globe for a memory keepsake. Learn more here.
Can I share something with you?
One of my most desired Christmas was to have my very own Christmas tree. And by that, I mean no borrowing, no inheriting, no someone else’s tree.
MINE.
Of course, with that comes all the decoration. This year is so special because I got to buy my favorite Christmas tree and decided that most of the ornaments and decorations would be handmade and rustic.
You might also love these Christmas cute ornament ideas: Diy Feather Filled Christmas Ornament, DIY Gold Ribbon Filled Clear Ornament, and DIY Monogrammed Embroidery Hoop Christmas Ornament.
DIY Christmas Ornament Snow Globe Tutorial
It feels like a huge accomplishment even though it might seem silly and a small thing for many people.
One of my ideas was that our Christmas tree should somehow include important moments of our family’s life. I thought it would be cute to have photos of those moments and I thought it would be a fun idea to make diy Snow Globe Ornaments.
If you have been around for the last few weeks, you might remember my Family Rustic Monogram Christmas Ornaments which was the start of this deeply personal Christmas decoration. Later I found these crystal Christmas balls and some mini wooden frames. I knew right away what to create.
Of course, I would need quite some dozens of these balls to include all my best memories but I thought 4 snowglobes with 2 miniatures photo memories each would do. I included the first time I had my girl on my chest, my wedding day, happy moments with family, and the love between us 3.
These Snow Globe Christmas Ornaments hold so much meaning and love that make my whole tree even bigger.
How to make A Christmas Ornament SNOW GLOBE
This great project is the perfect excuse to spend time with kids or a lady’s craft night. These would also make great Christmas gifts or even a neighbor or teacher gift.
Hope you enjoy these keepsake ornaments and get inspired to make some with your own special moments and memories.
Supplies:
- Faux snow – to make it look like a winter wonderland scene.
- Jingle bells
- Clear plastic ornament {those that open in half size of your choice, I used 3inchesornaments}
- Printed photos
- Glitter {snow-like and gold}
- Twine
- Wooden mini frames {usually scrapbook supplies and make sure fit into the crystal balls}
- Clear elastic Nylon.
Tools:
- Hot glue gun + glue sticks
- Scissors and craft knife
Before we begin making these easy diy snow globes, be sure to follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and also sign up for our email list (at the end of this post), so you’ll never miss a post!
Instructions:
Making the inner Frames
1. The first step is cutting your photos and testing them on your frames to have them in the right size.
2. Once you have all your photos ready, apply some hot glue on your frames and glue your photos right face down.
3. Do this on both frames, front and back.
4. Cut a strip of clear nylon thread {about 2 Inches}
5. Glue it to the back of one of your frames.
6. Apply hot glue all over the back of your frame and photo and glue it to the other frame.
7. Double-check that your frame fits in your crystal ball.
8. Repeat the process with the rest of your frames. Mine look like these front and back:
Assembling the snow globe Ornament
9. Pour some fake snow into one half of your crystal ball.
10. Then add glitter, I used snow-like white glitter, gold and some cute stars.
11. To make sure the frame won’t slide free, insert the nylon through the ball hole. make sure it will be hanging without touching any ornament walls.
12. Put back in place the other half of your clear ornament.
Quick tip: You can add a tiny dab of hot glue to make sure it won’t easily open or a tiny piece of clear adhesive tape on the bottom.
13. Repeat with the other Christmas balls you want to make.
14. Cut some strips of twine for a more rustic look, 2 for each ball. One for hanger, the other for a bow.
15. For the bow, slide a bell on the piece of twine strip until the middle.
16. Then make a bow keeping the bell in the middle.
17. For the hanger, slide the twine through the Christmas ball’s hole and make a knot with both ends.
18. Finally, leaving the knot right in the hole, apply small dabs of hot glue and glue the bow.
That’s it! There you go, one adorable Christmas ornament snow globe!
Make as many as you like and keep adding more and more memories.
Some really meaningful and pretty Memory Keepsake Christmas ornament snow globes.
A few variations and alternatives
If you find the faux snow too messy (I know I do LOL) I know there are different types of faux snow some are less messy than others but you can use glitter that since it’s heavier than the faux snow, will be less messy.
You can also use a white organza ribbon, it looks so elegant and gorgeous. I know some bloggers use Epsom salt too but I have no idea how long that would last.
I found my wooden frame in the scrapbook section of the craft store, but If you can’t find the mini wooden frames, you can always make them with craft sticks (like the popsicles but narrower) or you can laminate the photo and leave it without frame.
If you would like to add a few more details inside of the photo snowglobe ornaments, you can add mini bottle brush trees, snowflakes, mini reindeer to create a snowy scene. You can even personalize them even more with family names written either on the photos or with vinyl on the outside of the ornament.
Instead of nylon, you can use rustic twine, white baker’s twine, and for the bow, if you don’t want the rustic look you can go for your favorite ribbon.
Crafting Tips
Using those ornaments that open in half is the perfect one for this project using real wooden frames. But you can just use regular clear ornaments if laminate your photos and insert them through the neck hanging from a nylon thread.
Not permanently gluing the ornaments shut, give you the chance to reuse them later on, you can replace photo or decorations. However, you need to be very careful so the ornaments don’t open up and spread the content all over. One solution is putting a small piece of clear adhesive tape on the bottom.
Aren’t these cute and joyful? Also super duper easy to make. you can have half a dozen of these ornaments made in less than an hour.
What do you think??? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Frequently Asked Questions
You can put faux snow, glitter, little trees, tiny bottle brush trees, mini pretty ornaments, favorite photos, confetti, mini reindeer, etc.
Although most snow globes have liquid inside, you don’t necessarily have to make it with liquids. You can easily make dry snowglobes by only adding dry items inside, being fake snow one of them.
You can get gorgeous clear ornaments at your local craft store, sometimes at Dollar tree stores, Asian stores, Christmas stores, amazon, and even department stores.
You can find them, especially in the craft stores where the scrapbook supplies are. But let’s not underestimate dollar trees and amazon.
More Christmas Ornaments to Try
If you like this cute Christmas ornament Snow Globe tutorial, I’m sure you will love these other Christmas project ideas too:
✂️ Tutorial
DIY Christmas Ornament Snow Globe for Memory Keepsake
Tools
- Hot glue gun + glue sticks
- Scissors and craft knife
Supplies
- Faux snow – to make it look like a winter wonderland scene.
- Jingle bells
- Clear plastic ornament {those that open in half size of your choice I used 3inchesornaments}
- Printed photos
- Glitter {snow-like and gold}
- Twine
- Wooden mini frames {usually scrapbook supplies and make sure fit into the crystal balls}
- Clear elastic Nylon.
Instructions
MAKING THE INNER FRAMES
- The first step is cutting your photos and testing them on your frames to have them in the right size.
- Once you have all your photos ready, apply some hot glue on your frames and glue your photos right face down.
- Do this on both frames, front and back.
- Cut a strip of clear nylon thread {about 2 Inches}
- Glue it to the back of one of your frames.
- Apply hot glue all over the back of your frame and photo and glue it to the other frame.
- Double-check that your frame fits in your crystal ball.
- Repeat the process with the rest of your frames. Mine look like these front and back:
ASSEMBLING THE SNOW GLOBE ORNAMENT
- Pour some fake snow into one half of your crystal ball.
- Then add glitter, I used snow-like white glitter, gold and some cute stars.
- To make sure the frame won’t slide free, insert the nylon through the ball hole. make sure it will be hanging without touching any ornament walls.
- Put back in place the other half of your clear ornamen
- Repeat with the other Christmas balls you want to make.
- Cut some strips of twine for a more rustic look, 2 for each ball. One for hanger, the other for a bow.
- For the bow, slide a bell on the piece of twine strip until the middle.
- Then make a bow keeping the bell in the middle.
- For the hanger, slide the twine through the Christmas ball’s hole and make a knot with both ends.
- Finally, leaving the knot right in the hole, apply small dabs of hot glue and glue the bow.
- That’s it! There you go, one adorable Christmas ornament snow globe!
Notes
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I love your snow globe ornaments and would like to make some. I am in the process of getting the supplies, but I have a few questions:
What size are the clear ornaments? 2 inches, 3 inches, 4 inches, 5 inches?
What size are the wooden mini frames? 2×3, 3×3?
Thanks so much!
Hi Jennifer,
Thank you so much for visiting and I’m glad you like these cuties. I usually don’t give exact measures because we can’t always find the exact sizes so I leave it open for each person to decide. In this case, I used 8 cm {3.14 Inches} clear ornaments and I used 2 mini frame sizes: 3×5 cm {1.18 x 2 Inches} and 5×5 cm {2 x 2 Inches}. Hope this helps. You can always make them smaller or larger if you have a large Christmas tree {if this is for a Christmas tree of course}.
If you make some I would so love to see them! I get so excited to see other’s creations inspired by mines!
Hugs
Hi Cami,
Thanks for all the info. I am having a really hard time finding some small frames for the ornaments. Any ideas?
I’ve got an idea. I think I’m going to try a natural wood slice round ornament, mod podge and a photo printed on regular paper. I just need to find a small size that will fit inside my clear ornament. It will take me a bit to gather the supplies and put it together, but I’ll send you a photo when I’m done. It will be something like this but I will put mine inside a clear ornament to create a snow globe.
https://simpleasthatblog.com/2016/12/10-minute-photo-keepsake-ornaments.html
Sorry I didn’t reply last comment, it’s been crazy. The frames I found them with scrapbooking elements. Maybe if you have a craft store near by you might find them where all the scrapbooking stuff is. However your idea of using natural wood slice is absolutely adorable and I might even get inspired by you for next year! Love it!!! Can’t wait to see!
Hugs and thank you so much for keeping me posted!
Hugs
Love the looks of homemade ornaments on Christmas trees. Our tree last year was nothing but homemade family ornaments; hence, our Family Tree. ( I worked on them ornaments for 11 months)
I looked at Michaels over the weekend for some of them crystal ball ornaments but they had none so wondering where you got yours? My 100 yr. old aunt had passed away this last March and wanted to make a memory ornament for her son and daughter.
Hi Colleen!
Oh my goodness! 11 months making ornaments? You are my hero! Although it would be less stressful than spending a whole month working like nuts to make it in time! LOL.
My Christmas balls, Uhmmm I got them in one of those cheap stores. I don’t live in USA, so it’s hard for me to say. Here we have lots of Chinese shops that sells Christmas stuff really cheap and I found these and loved them to customize the ornament. Maybe on amazon? These are not actually crystal material but they do look like it. it’s really clear and delicate. These balls are also on non-chrirstmas craft supplies just in case that helps!
Let me know if you find some of how it goes!
Thank you so much for leaving me your thoughts!
huga