DIY Santa Mickey Mouse Ornaments

My family and I LOVE Disney World. We live just 40 minutes away from this magical land and since we have annual passes, we frequently visit the parks. A few months ago I was browsing through the Christmas store at Disney's Hollywood Studios and came across the cutest ornament! I flipped the price tag over and was not so surprised to see the inflated $16.95 staring back at me. Bummer. As I was giving it a second look, I thought to myself, I bet these would be fairly simple to make.. So, I put the idea in the back of my head and left. Fast forward to last week and I have finished my ornaments- and they look amazing! I've had so many friends ask for directions, which I will happily share. :)

DIY Santa Mickey Mouse Ornament

Santa Mickey Mouse Ornament from DisneyStore 

Supplies:
- Solid red large ornaments (I used a satin finish)
- Small styrofoam balls, 2 per ornament
- Black loose glitter
- Black acrylic paint
- Paint brush
- Gold fine point paint pen
- Tape
- Hot glue gun
- 2-3 cups
- Toothpicks

Let me start out by saying that this project can get messy. I recommend laying out newspaper or a towel on your work space.

First start out by making your ears. Insert a toothpick into one of the styrofoam balls and paint the entire thing w/ black paint. Immediately sprinkle glitter over the entire thing and set aside to dry. You can take it off the toothpick and let it dry or use a styrofoam block and stick it there to dry on the toothpick. Next take your tape and stencil out the "belt" around the ornament. I used typical scotch tape and it worked well. It's very hard to keep your lines straight and even, I used measuring tape to make sure my spacing was even on the first few and then eyeballed it for the rest. I left a gap on the front on each side intentionally; that's the way the real ones look like and it looks like belt loops. Paint your belt with black paint and immediately sprinkle glitter over it. Remove the tape and set it on top of a glass to prevent it from rolling around and smearing. You can either paint on your belt buckle now or wait until it dries. I did both ways and each worked fine. The paint pen works fantastic and is easy to use. If you'd like, you can write on the back with the gold pen; I added last names and the year to the back of mine. Once your ears have dried, remove the toothpicks and slice off a very thin sliver from the ear, about the size of a nickel. Add a small amount of hot glue to the shaved edge and attach to your ornament. Hold it for a few seconds so it doesn't slide! Repeat for the opposite side. Don't worry if you put the ears on lopsided- wait for the glue to dry and carefully but forcefully pull the ear off. The remaining glue on the ornament will peel off with some elbow grease, not that I know that from experience or anything.. ;)

And there you have it! I spent less than $20 on enough supplies to make 8 ornaments (Hobby Lobby had all christmas ornaments 50% off, plus I had a 40% coupon on a regularly priced item). My iPhone camera does not do these ornaments justice, they really look professional in person! I can't wait to get these on our tree!