Photo Filled Christmas Ornaments

This little diy is one I had swimming in my head all summer! How do I get more than one photo onto or into a Christmas ornament and not have it look cheesy? Itty bitty photo books? Photo garland?

After a little trial and error I landed on these- photo filled ornaments that require basically just a printer and some clear packing tape! The end result is an interactive ornament that reveals a new memory every time you shake it. I used random photos but you could focus on on theme (a favorite trip or a specific person maybe!) or moments from this year.

MATERIALS:

Clear plastic ball ornaments
Clear packing tape
Printer/paper
computer or
double stick tape
OPTIONAL: laminator (here’s an affiliate link for a really good, inexpensive laminator on amazon!)

Here is an example of one of my grids ready to print. I made it in procreate by importing each photo and creating grids of nine, then adding four grids of nine to one page.

DIRECTIONS:

Create a few grids of 1×1/1.5×1.5” photos. You can do this in procreate, Microsoft word, pic monkey or canva. I usually start with one picture and size it down to a little square then make the other imported picture match that size. I’m not too scientific about exact measurements.
Print out your grids and cut out the photos.
lay out a strip of packing tape sticky side up.
Carefully place photo squares photo side down leaving space in between to cut them apart and still have tape around all edges but DONT cut yet.
Add a piece of double stick tape to the back of each photo.
Now lay another photo facing up on top of each photo from step 4. You are sandwiching the photos together.
Add another strip of packing tape on top of the photo sandwiches and smooth out.
Cut photos out again taking care to leave a slim border of packing tape (or they will separate)
**if you have a laminator, you could skip steps 3-7 and laminate the little photo squares together.**
Now you can just gently roll/curl these up and slip them into your ornament balls!