It's that time of year again! Homemade ornament making season! This year, as I was contemplating what I wanted to make I decided I wanted to not only spend as little as possible, but also maybe use up some of my craft scrap items. Ok, so I really didn't know what to call my craft scrap items, so let me explain what those are. If you've been following my blog you know that not only do I try to spend little on a project, but I also like to up-cycle materials I can't recycle. With that, my craft scrap items are things that I don't want to throw away to make more trash, but I can't recycle them so they get stored in my craft room to maybe serve a new purpose in the future.
While I was looking through my craft scrap items, I found a bag full of lids. Lids from spaghetti jars, jelly jars, pickle jars and more. Yes, I saved the lids. I can't get myself to throw them away and I can't recycle them, so I store them in a ziplock bag. And guess what?! They were the perfect item for my ornament idea!
This year, my husband and I started Civil War Re-Enactment. It was something my husband did when he was in middle school and we thought it would be fun to do as a family. When I was thinking about ornament ideas, my husband mentioned making something that tied into re-enactment. (Each year the girls' ornaments represent something from the year). Knowing I wanted to do something with a photo of them from Re-Enactment and finding the lids, my idea started forming!
Ok so that brings me to our project! Did you know you can make cute photo holders out of old lids? Let me show you how!
Materials:
lids from jars (your choice on size)
circle cutter OR sharpie & scissors
twine or ribbon of choice
4x6 photo of choice
hot glue gun & glue sticks
1st: Cut out your photo based on the size of your jar lid.
I used lids from spaghetti sauce. The lids measured about 2 1/2 inches in diameter. I first used my circle cutter to cut out the photo. However, after my 2nd photo my blade didn't work, so I just ended up tracing the rest with a sharpie and cutting them out with scissors. This works just as well, so if you don't have a circle cutter you can still make it work. Place your lid on the photo you want to use covering the part you want to show case, then trace with a sharpie. Note that the inside is a little smaller than the outside of the lid, so just cut along the inner part of the sharpie line.
2nd: Pop the photo in!
NO GLUING NEEDED! The photo will just pop right in and stay in since there's a rim around the edge of the jar! Plus, if you ever want to swap out photos you can!
3rd: Add the twine or ribbon to the back of the lid.
Hot glue the twine or ribbon to the back of the first lid.
4th: Glue the two lids together.
Take the 2nd lid (If you want to make it double sided) add hot glue to the edge and press the two lids together. Now you don't have to have the photo ornament be double sided, but you can cover up the hot glue spot if you do. Plus as it spins you can see two different photos!
All in all, once I had the photos printed this took me maybe 30 minutes and that was for all three! It's a really fast project! You can make these photo holders as gifts for Christmas, or a special occasion too! I hope you enjoy!
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