Easy DIY Glitter Ornaments Including A Grinch Ornament!

Love seeing all those cute DIY glitter ornaments?  Learn how to make glitter ornaments with a step by step and video tutorial.  Glitter ornaments make a perfect gift for kids, family, coworkers, teachers, etc.

They say when in doubt, just add glitter, right?  Amen!  I would add glitter to everything if I could.  That extra sparkle just makes me smile.

Except I’m not really loving glitter all over my floor, in my hair, and on my dogs (well, maybe I secretly do!).  

When I started seeing the glitter ornaments pop up on Pinterest around November and December, I knew I had to make some.

The glitter Christmas ornaments were super easy to make and these would be amazing gifts since you can personalize them in so many different ways!  They are also perfect ornaments to make at a holiday craft party.

If you like crafting during this time of year, make sure to browse through my other DIY Christmas decor tutorials!

Ok, let’s get started on how to make glitter baubles… this project is pretty quick!  I also made a quick DIY glitter ornaments video tutorial if you prefer to watch rather than read.

Make sure to watch it at the top or the side of the post.  There are also printable directions for the Christmas glitter ornaments at the bottom.

**Instructions for the Grinch ornament are closer to the bottom.

What is the Best Glitter to Use in Glitter Baubles

I have used a few different types of glitter in clear glass ornaments and plastic baubles. I tend to like the extra fine glitter since it seems to coat the best and adds the best sparkle.

You can tell with the grinch ornaments, I used a regular glitter that gives a different look. So really, it depends on the look you are going for!

You can also use embossing powder to create a diffuse sparkle effect. See the white Joy to the World ornament to check out the look!

Where to Buy Clear Ornaments to Fill?

Nowadays it’s pretty easy to find plastic clear baubles or clear plastic ornaments. Almost any craft store, like Joann or Michaels, will have small packages to bulk supplies.

You can even find single larger plastic ball ornaments at the Dollar Tree and Walmart.

Of course, Amazon always has a great selection!

What is the Best Glue to Use Inside Glitter Ornaments?

There are quite a few different glues or “adhesives” to use to make the glitter stick inside a plastic or glass ornament.

My favorite to use is polycrylic. Polyurethane is another option people use, but it is much for toxic and flammable than polycrylic. They are similar other than that.

Elmer’s glue and Mod Podge are pretty thick and take a long time to cover the inside of a ball. I’m just not that patient! I’ve seen people use it but I would dilute it with some water first.

Pledge or floor cleaner or Mop & Glo are another popular medium that works well. I have just heard that it doesn’t seem to stand up as well over the years. My glitter ornaments from over 5 years old still look the same using polycrylic!

Plus I use polycrylic to cover my DIY wood signs and to cover furniture so I always have it on hand, so we are going to be focusing on how to make glitter ornaments with polycrylic in this tutorial.

Materials Needed for DIY Glitter Ornaments

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from Amazon and/or Cricut.com. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my links.

• Glass or plastic clear ornaments – you can use the disc shape or round and either glass or plastic.
• Polycrylic Water Based Protective Finish
• Extra Fine Glitter – I used Ruby, gold and green but you can use any color.  For the white ornament, I used white embossing powder.
• Cricut cutting machine – found on Amazon here
• Optional – Vinyl decals or stickers and Cricut tools
• small funnel

There are also printable instructions on how to glitter the inside of plastic ornaments at the bottom of the post if you love to print everything to have it on hand like I do!

How to Make Glitter Ornaments with Polycrylic

Take the lid off the ornament and add a bit of polyacrylic inside at the top of the ornament.  It doesn’t have to be a lot, maybe about 1/4 of the ornament. I like to use a funnel that is specifically dedicated to this project (from Dollar Tree!).

Gently rotate the ornament all the way around so the polyacrylic covers the entire inside of the ornament.  I keep rotating it while I turn the ornament upside down.

Then let the rest of the solution drain out back into a container.  Gently tap the sides a few times and try to get all the extra polycrylic out – it can take 30 seconds or so.

If you are making a bunch at one time, I like to put the ornaments upside to drain in an egg carton or even back in the ornament container and let them drain for a minute or so.

I will pour the polycrylic in about three in a row and then start pouring glitter in them in the same order.

Adding Glitter in Clear Ornaments!

Then turn the ornament over and add a bunch of glitter into the ornament. You can pour some in from the container or use a funnel.

Again rotate the ornament around so the glitter covers the entire inside of the bauble.  You will see it stick to it.

Just rotate while slowly turning it to the upside-down direction.  Then I put my finger over the opening and gently shake the glitter inside towards your finger upside down so it covers the whole top part and the entire ornament.

I put a piece of wax paper underneath and then dump the extra glitter on it.  Tap the ornament to get the extra out.  

Then make sure to pick up the paper and use it to pour the excess glitter back in the glitter container.  Never waste glitter!!

Again I turn them upside down and place them in an egg carton and let them drain for while until they are dry. I allow them to dry for 20-30 minutes or so.

Glitter Ornament DIY Decal Application

For the vinyl decals, I design mine in Cricut Design Space and use my favorite tool, my Cricut Explore.  I cut them all out of adhesive vinyl, weed them, and this is what they look like.

If you’d like to find out what more you can make with a Cricut, hop on over to my Cricut projects page.

To apply the vinyl, make sure you clean the outside of the ornaments with rubbing alcohol to get all the grease off.  Put transfer paper over it and line it up where you want it.

The advantage of a disc ornament is that it is much easier to apply the vinyl too! The round ball ornaments are a little bit trickier because of the curved surface.

If you are working with glass ornaments, just be careful not to push too hard and break!

On a curved surface, it’s best to cut a bunch of slits on the sides so you can lay the different sections down easier.  You can find my full tutorial on applying vinyl by clicking here. Pull the transfer paper off and you’re done! 

You can also use Cricut’s print and cut function to print out any picture you’d like to add to an ornament as I did in my Cricut ornaments post.

Finished Glitter Ornaments DIY with Vinyl Decals

These are some of the glitter Christmas ornaments on my Christmas tree that I’ve come up with so far!

I love the way this one turned out!!  I used embossing powder instead of glitter and it adds cool glitter specks throughout the ornament!

And the best part is that I didn’t have to buy any extra supplies from the craft store!

You can even make glitter ornaments that light up and get a FREE Joy to the World cut file (click the link for the tutorial!).

I’ve also made some cute personalized floating DIY Christmas ornaments for my kiddos.

Learn how to design something like this in Cricut Design Space by using extra glyphs and characters on my tutorial here.

Make sure to check out my roundup of over 150 DIY Christmas ornaments to make using all different kinds of crafting supplies!

Santa cam ornaments are always fun for little ones!

That’s it!!  There are so many things you can design and make for glitter ornaments DIY.  You can use stickers on them or paint.  Even using your child’s fingerprint would make precious DIY ornaments.

You can even add two different colors of extra fine glitter into the ornament and swirl them around!

Grinch Ornaments!

One of my favorite glitter ornaments are these DIY Grinch ornaments. Aren’t they fun??

Last year I made two different sizes of Grinch ornaments.  One was a large plastic ornament from the Dollar Tree and the other one was one of the flatter glass ornaments listed above. 

I used regular green glitter (not chunky glitter) in the ornament instead of an extra fine so you can actually see the individual glitter specks.

Then for the Grinch DIY glitter ornament, you get a green feather boa from a craft store and hot glue it around the top. (It’s long so you can cut it to make a bunch!)

You can find this Grinch face on Etsy here or I also have a slightly different FREE Grinch face SVG file to use when making Grinch ornaments DIY.

If you like The Grinch ornaments, you’ll probably love my roundup of Grinch crafts and my Dollar Store Mr. Grinch decorations made out of glass bowls.

Do you love glitter as much as I do?  I could add it to everything!  If you’d like to see a roundup of how to add even more glitter to Christmas go here and also hop on over to my easy glitter light-up snowman tutorial and free SVG by clicking here!

If you want to learn all sorts of ways to use a Cricut, make sure to check out my Ultimate Resource guide for the Cricut ideas that you can read here.

Want to save this tutorial on DIY glitter ornaments for later, simply hover over the top left of the image below and PIN It now!

Here are printable directions if you’d like!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful holiday season and a creative day!