25 Gifts & Ornaments - #2 - Vintage Christmas Light Bulb Ornaments

Before I share today's ornaments I have to tell you how lucky I am to live in a rural area of Indiana.  Now you won't always hear me say this because sometimes living an hour from everywhere sucks BUT it does have it's little bright spots.  One of those bright spots is you sometimes find unexpected goodness somewhere you normally wouldn't.  I know, you're thinkin - ?!?!? 

Well, today's ornament was made using some vintage Christmas light bulbs which I found by accident a couple of months ago.   We have several small towns in our area, many of the business that still survive usually serve more than one set of clientele.  Back in September youngest ds was interested in a vintage VW van that was located about 15 miles from here in a small town called Wolf Lake.  Dh wasn't home in time to go with him and his girlfriend to look at it so I went along with my list of questions I was supposed to ask.  As it turned out it was a better trip for me than ds. 

The business that was selling the used cars was also a small hardware store, a lawn & garden store, the local farmer dive (is there something lower than a dive?) - literally it had an assortment of old kitchen chairs scattered around a coffee pot, microwave and mini fridge!  This same store also sold an assortment of new "flea market" items (mostly resin statues and sport team related items) AND it also had a small corner set aside for "antiques".  We were there a bit early so I decided to scope out the goodies in the junk corner.  I found a box which contained a few strands of old Christmas lights and two partial boxes of ornaments which had some great graphics.  The guy wanted 10.00 for it all but I got it for 7.00 :)  (Ds didn't get the van).

You know how much I love to take someone elses junk and turn it into a treasure so of course I have several ideas on how to spruce up these bulbs so I'll be sharing more projects incorporating these little gems.

Today however I wanted to pair vintage and not so vintage Christmas light bulbs with glitter!!!  I've got a couple different looks to share with you but I'm sure you could experiment and come up with several more looks using the same basic supplies.

25 Ornaments & Gifts -

#2 - Vintage Christmas

Light Bulb Ornaments

Supplies:

Glass Christmas Light Bulbs (old or new)
Stickles Glitter Glue or Glue & Glitter
Double Stick Tape
Ribbon, Fiber, Pipe Cleaners, etc. (for the hanger)
Paper Tape, Pattern Paper, etc.
Instructions:

1. Starting at the metal base, drip the glue or Stickles down towards the tip of the bulb.  Vary the length of each little spike continuing around the entire bulb.  Set it aside to dry.

2. Wrap a piece of double stick tape around the exposed metal base.  Attach one end of the ribbon (or other hanger material) to one side of the base and the other end to the opposite side of the metal base.  Continue to wrap the double stick tape around the base one more revolution. 

3. Cover the adhesive tape with your choice of ribbon, paper tape, pattern paper, fabric, etc. 

And you're done!!! 

These are just a few of the ornaments I whipped up in a matter of 30 minutes.  It took more time for the glue to dry than it did to finish them off.

You could make enough to cover your entire tree in a day if you had enough bulbs. 

Don't ya just love the look of these gems!

BONUS IDEA!!!!

Glitter Christmas Light Bulbs

Supplies:

New Christmas Light Bulbs
Glue
Glitter
Double Stick Tape
Ribbon, Fiber, Paper Tape, Pattern Paper, Pipe Cleaner, etc.

1. Cover one side of the light bulb with a thick liquid clear drying glue. 

2. Smooth out the glue so there is an even coat over this half of the bulb.

3. Sprinkle the glitter over the glue and set it aside for a few minutes to dry.

4. Repeat steps 1-3 for the second half of the bulb.

5. Attach the hanger and cover the metal base as instructed for the vintage light bulbs.

And here are a few of my Glittery Christmas Bulb Ornaments!

You'll notice how the color of the glitter can vary from one bulb to another depending on the original color of the bulb....  The ornament on the left and the one laying down were covered with the same glitter.  The difference ~ one started out red and the other green.   

EXTRA BONUS IDEA.....Wrap the bulb with some of the double stick tape, remove the liner and sprinkle glitter on the tape.  Finish off using the same type of hanger as mentioned above.  You'll end up with a nifty glittery design!

So, if you have some old strands of lights hiding in your attic ~

for petes sake, DON'T toss them!!!

Pull 'em out,

dust 'em off

and

give them some new life!