After months of building the new deck, I was excited to tackle something easy for exterior decoration. I started with a 30" wreath “blank” for the front center of the railing. It has 5 colors in 4 sizes of plastic ball ornaments.
Before I even got started I picked up a smaller blank for the gate. It has 4 colors, in 3 sizes of plastic ball ornaments and some metal tree-shaped jingle bells.
Of course, I made it less easy. The ornaments are from the dollar store and mostly came in tubes of 10-15. I had searched for “shatterproof” ornaments in colors I wanted, but only found them online (hard to trust the color) and kind of costly. So, I decided to paint them! With metallic spray paint (mostly on hand) in temps around freezing. Uh-oh!
First I drilled holes in a sturdy cardboard tube for hanging ornaments and also to attach wires for hanging the whole thing. I used floral wire (stash) to hang the ornaments and then attaching to the wreaths.
I hung the whole rig up in my woodshed to spray the ornaments, then would whisk the whole thing into our downstairs bathroom which came with hooks in the ceiling and has a ventilation fan to dry.
Each ball was primed and painted, sometimes a couple coats. And I “filled” this rig multiple times, so I went through the process several times.
I think that these ornaments will last longer than if I had not painted them, having made a wreath with dollar store ornaments before… they only lasted a couple years before really fading.
I bought battery-powered LED lights for them that came with a remote and a timer. YEY!
What great decorations to your awesome deck.
Reading through the post, I saw the pictures and thought it looks wonderful, and then got to the last pictures and saw that they also light up. That made my face light up with a big smile!
Congratulations! This festive project is featured this week!