Santa Ornament Decor

• Silver Tray from Dollar Tree.  You could also use a picture frame or even wood for this project.
• The Santa ornament.  I purchased both the red and the gold Santa ornaments at WalMart for $1.98 each.  They do sell these same ornaments at Hobby Lobby if you can’t find any at your local WalMart.
• Paint.  I used the Waverly chalk paint in the color Plaster for this project.
• Mod Podge
• Scrapbook paper of your choice
• Rub n Buff or an accent colored paint of your choice
• Embelishments of your choice
  

Here is how I made it:

1. I first traced the paper along the oval part of the tray so that I could cut a piece to fit the inside of it.  I didn’t worry too much about whether or not it would be perfect, as I had originally planned to use a border of some kind along the inside to hide any of those imperfections.  In the end I decided against the border and left mine as is.  It is good to note here that I made both Santa’s the same exact way, I just used different embelishments and accent colors.

2. Once my paper was cut, I sat it aside so that I could  paint the tray with my chalk paint.  This took two coats. I dried it inbetween the coats with my heat gun.

3. I used mod podge to coat the inside of the tray and placed the paper on top while it was still wet.  I rubbed it all over until I felt it was on there smoothly and with no bubbles.  I dried it a bit with my heat gun and put a coat of mod podge on top of the paper to give it a good seal.

4. After the mod podge completely cured, I hot glued my santa to the middle (left to right) of the tray, but wanted him more towards the bottom portion in order to add embelishments to the top.

5. I had some greenery in my stash so I pulled out a bunch and just kept playing with different pieces until I felt good about how they looked.  I opted for  a rusty bell on both instead of a traditional bow.

6. Lastly I used some red acrylic paint on my finger to lightly touch on the raised spot around the frame (for the red santa) and antique rub n buff to go around the frame for the gold santa.

I LOVE how these turned out and hope you love them too!  Which one is your favorite?