DIY Christmas Ornament - Travel Inspired ,2015 Ornament Exchange, How to include image in text using PicMonkey & much more.

It's time for all the jingles, cookies and fun.Yes, It is almost christmas and it is time to start making christmas crafts. I am starting this year's christmas crafts in a fun way with lot of exciting ideas & inspiration for you to kick start the season . Erlene from MyPinterventures has partnered with Over 80+ bloggers and have organized a fun 2015 Ornament exchange where each one is assigned a partner to whom we have to make (Or buy) an special ornament and send it to them .Each of them will be sharing their story of how they made (or bought) their ornament starting from Nov 1 to Nov 13. And today is Day 9 of the series where I am going to share "How I made an travel inspired Ornament" for my gorgeous and lovely Partner - Terri from Christmas tree lane .

When we were exchanging information of about our likes and themes, Terri said she loves her Travel themed christmas tree. So, I decided I am making something travel inspired for her. I thought something in the remembrance of New york would be great addition for her travel tree as she said her travel tree has ornaments from all over the world. New york City is great place full of breathtaking landmarks so I was kind of in the dilemma of whether to make an ornament with any one particular landmark or include few of the top landmarks.Finally I decided and figured an idea of including few top landmarks of new york and come along to learn how to make this gorgeous travel inspired ornament.

Materials Required:
Clear Ornament
Acrylic paint
Sticker paper
Xacto knife or any electronic cutting machine
Printer
Black Marker pen(Optional)
Rhinestones (Optional)
G.S Hypocement of any jewelry glue like E 6000 (optional)
Any tape

Step 1: Remove the top part of the ornament and pour some acrylic paint of your desired color into the clear ornament. Swirl the ornament to coat the paint on the whole ornament and pour the remaining paint into the paint bottle. It is takes sometime for the paint to transfer into the paint bottle, so I decided to use some masking tape to hold the ornament upside down with the bottle. Once it is done, allow it to dry and close the ornament.

Step 2: Open picmonkey.com and type the letters or words you want to include images with your favorite font. I wanted a bold font so the image can show through nicely so I went with a classic Arial black.Type your letters vertically so that when you overlay picture it won't overlap on the top of the next letter.

Step 3: Before moving to the next step , google and save the pictures you want.(Make sure it is copyright free). Go to overlay option on left tool bar of picmonkey window. (There will be a small butterfly icon for overlay) .Click "Your own" option in the drop down and select the image you want to use. Drag to the top of the letter and select "add" in the overlay pop up window. You will now see the image inside the text. You can use one image on all the text or repeat the same steps to include different images for each letter. I went with second option and included a picture of top landmarks like Empire state building, central park, Chrysler building, World trade center, Brooklyn bridge , Times square & statue of liberty for each letter in "NEW YORK".

Step 4: Crop the image and save it on your computer. Print the image on a sticker paper and cut each letter around the border with Xacto Knife. Or, If you have any electronic cutting machine like silhouette or Circut, Open your saved image on to your software,in my case silhouette studio.Open the registration mark window and select style 1 and adjust your image to fit within the marks.

Step 5: Click the trace icon and select the area to trace. Adjust high pass filter,threshold , scale till the area needs to be cut is fully yellow.Then select "Trace" to define the cut the lines. Check whether all the areas you need to be cut is defined. Send it to the printer for printing.

Step 6:  Once the sticker paper is printed , mount it to the mat and load it into your machine. Select your cut settings for sticker paper and send it to silhouette for cutting your letters.

Step 7: Now your sticker should be ready so that each letter is separate and acts as a sticker. Peel off the back and stick the letters to your ornament.

Step 8: There were little white spots on the sides of the sticker which was bothering me a bit. So I used a black marker and outlined each word. If you are like me, go ahead and do it , or you can leave it as is.

Step 9: Use G.S Hypocement to stick some rhinestones all around the ornament for extra glam. Again, this is totally a optional step.Your glamorous travel inspired ornament is now ready.

Hope you enjoyed learning how to make travel inspired christmas ornament. To see me make this in video  format along with one more easy ornament idea, don't forget to visit this site on Wednesday.Stay tuned!! This tutorial can be customized in so many ways to suit your taste. Instead of bunch of landmark pictures , you can use your own pictures from any of the memorable vacation trip or use a single scenery from the vacation to make an ornament. The possibilities are endless. Wanna know what Terri send me, check it out, here. 

As mentioned earlier , here is the video 

Also checkout the some of the other blogger friends who are posting their ornament tutorial today.

Craving some Creativity

C'mon get crafty

The Road to Domestication

Blue Willow House

Raising Fairies and Knights

Organized by Sunshine

If you want to try a Animals inspired ornament, check out my tutorial from last year.