Halloween Ornament Tree

I bought a black Halloween tree to decorate our house without really thinking of what I wanted to do with it. I saw some fun ornaments but most were just too big for our little tree. A friend suggested I make ornaments with scary faces on them. I loved this idea but had a hard time finding good photos to download. Then the idea of a family Halloween tree hit me.

I found small black canvases at Michael's that came 8 in a pack. I picked photos from past Halloweens to include on the tree.

For the Belle costume ornament, I had a package of the Modge Podge metal necklace and ring kit. I used one of these for this ornament. The other pieces in that kit were really small, but this fit perfectly for the shape of her photo.

It was difficult cropping the photos for printing. I wanted to make sure the whole costume would fit but since they were small, I didn't want too much extra space around each kid. To get this right, I opened up the photo and enlarged the photo on my screen to the size of photo I would print. This way, I could hold up the canvas to see how the photo would fit. I could them crop the photo correctly.

I already had this string, so I cut 2-3 inch pieces for each ornament. I stapled them onto the canvases before adding the photos. This is key! I stapled one after adding the photo and it went straight through the photo.

To cut straight edges on the photos, I used a rotary trimmer and glued the photo onto the canvas. I then added the matte Modge Podge.

They turned out great! My friends and family loved seeing all the past costumes and pictures. I'm excited to make the ones from the pictures we took this year.