When it comes to decorating for Christmas, I do try and keep the decorations in keeping with the style of my home. Which is why I loves these DIY Glass Dome decorations I’m going to show you how to do.
Reason being with each glass dome you can create your own unique decoration inside, to suit your interior style. As well as be perfectly festive for your Christmas decorating.
DIY Glass Domes – Pine Cones
You will need;
- Pine Cones
- Glitter (colour of your choice)
- PVA
- Scrap paper, and card
- Paint Brush
- Artificial Snow – 100g artificial snow from Hobby Craft
- Glass Dome and wooden base– Small option from Hobby Craft
This is a very quick and easy DIY decoration to make. It’s a great and fast activity to make a beautiful festive impact in your home.
Firstly put some PVA on your scrap card, dab the glue with your paint brush. Then paint the PVA onto all the areas to wish to be covered with glitter.
I personally love the glitter to be on the ends of the pine cones, catching the light and glistens.
Next, place your PVA’d pine cone onto your scrap piece of paper, and sprinkle your choice of glitter over it. Turn the cone around after each sprinkle, to make every glued area is covered.
Top Tip: Once glittered, gently shake your pine cone over the scrap paper to release any un-used glitter, and then pour back into your glitter bag…so nothing goes to waste.
I went for natural colours of glitter to compliment the pine cones. For this project I worked with gold and light bronze glitter, both of which I sourced from eBay.
Whilst your pine cones are drying, take your artificial snow and sprinkle over the wooden base of the Glass Dome.
Put as much or as little as you feel necessary, depending on the look you want to create.
When your glitter pine cones are dry, style them on the wooden base and then place the glass dome lid over the top to seal.
And there you have it, your very own DIY Pine Cone Glass Dome.
DIY Glass Domes – Winter Tree Dome
This particular craft activity has been inspired from Emily Dawe’s ‘Paper Christmas’ Craft Book, which is now available to purchase. With 16 different paper craft activities, there is plenty to get crafty with; within your home, for gift giving, and for pure craft fun. It’s a wonderful gift idea for anyone who loves craft…and Christmas!
I chose the Winter Tree Domes activity, and have gone with Emily’s top tip to use my own papers/card. This is so it compliments our Living Room Style.
For this project you will need;
- Card – glitter card, or a selection that you can add glitter to, that you may have scraps of, i.e. wrapping paper, or even wallpaper/fabric swatches.
- Paper and/or tracing paper for templates
- Scissors
- PVA
- Paint Brush
- Scrap paper, and card
- Glitter
- Artificial Snow – 100g artificial snow from Hobby Craft
- Glass Dome with base – tall option from Hobby Craft
Firstly you need to trace and cut out the five different scale trees Emily has provided within her book, with you tracing paper, or everyday printer paper.
You can also draw up your own, making sure you have a variety of heights and widths.
Once you your five tree templates, you then need to decide from your collected cards, which tree shape is going to go on what design.
I used a variety of card sourced from Paper Mill Direct, and my Pretty Flower wallpaper (backed with card), to compliment our Living Room mantle piece.
I knew I wanted three in the Pretty Flower pattern and made sure I chose a variety of the sizes.
The remaining two tree templates were used with the plain card options, in complimenting colours of navy and blush.
To bring a bit of sparkle to match the gold foil and pearlescent ink (from my wallpaper samples), I painted thin PVA glue details onto each plain card tree. Then I sprinkled gold glitter over the glue. This was to make them more unified in the dome, and compliment my wallpaper trees.
Emily recommends that you trace your trees templates twice on the same paper to create a more sturdy backing. Plus to make the Dome display look pretty, when it’s being looked at from all angles.
Top Tip: Make sure you trace one tree one way, then for your second/backing tree flip over the template. Therefore when the trees are placed to back to back they are symmetrical.
Next glue your two trees together, leaving out part of the trunk (from the bottom). Make sure you PVA to the edge of each of your tree branches, for your trees to stick together securely.
After (when dry), you can snip away any excess edges that may appear to neaten your trees up.
Where you didn’t glue the trunks of each tree, fold out to create two flat tabs. Then with your Dome base, starting with your largest tree, start to glue the tabs and position in place.
Top Tip: When you glue the tallest tree down, put the dome over the top to sure the trees don’t get knocked or squashed.
Start to arrange the rest of your trees in height order, and glue down. Again pay attention where you place your trees, i.e. don’t place to the branches to close to the dome’s edge to risk it getting squashed.
Once your trees are in place, sprinkle your required amount of artificial snow over the base, and securely close with the glass dome.
And that’s it! A beautiful Winter Tree Dome. Thanks Emily for sharing this wonderful craft, available in her ‘Paper Christmas’ book.
I love how easy it is to create these looks, plus tailor them to suit your interior styling.
I have styled my DIY Glass Dome Decorations on our Living Room Mantle Piece. This is a feature in our Living Room that I find quick and simple to alter around as the seasons change. Whilst looking stylish each time.
How I have styled my DIY Glass Dome Decorations;
These glass dome decorations are ideal for decorating a shelf or mantle area in your home. I wanted to create three festive glass domes (two with pine cones, and one with the trees), and create a feature for our Living Room mantle piece.
I have kept in simple to make sure the attention falls on the DIY Glass Dome Decorations. I’ve kept the colour palette complimenting our living room décor, in particular the duck egg Pretty Flower wallpaper. I have added styled two silver cracked candle holders to break up the gaps between each glass dome.
Then I have entwined copper wire lighting around and in between each, to bring a little light around the decorations in the evening. I love fairy lights and low-lit lighting, especially in winter, because it brings warmth to a room (as well as subtle light), helping you relax.
Finally, you can also have a little fun with this display, and style with some of your artificial snow on the shelf/mantle piece as well, to make it feel even more festive.
Have a Merry and Crafty Christmas!
Have fun with being Crafty over Christmas, especially if you’ve been inspired to make these DIY Glass Dome Decorations! Do let me know what you end up creating; I’d love to know.
If you’d love some inspiration, I would highly recommend Emily’s ‘Paper Christmas’ Craft Book. It’s got an amazing range of paper crafts you can apply all year round.
[…] The beauty about these flower glass domes is that you can interchange them at anytime of year. Are you thinking of Winter ideas already? Make sure you read my DIY Christmas Glass Dome Blog here. […]
[…] Last year I wrote a guest blog for Emily Dawe’s new book ‘Paper Christmas’, where I did my own DIY take on her Christmas Glass Domes, which you can read about here. […]
[…] by adding a little bit of glitter to the pine ends. I’ve shown you how over on my blog ‘DIY Glass Dome Decorations’, which has a step-by-step guide to creating […]