Mod Foam Ornaments

Mod Foam Ornament
As I was scouring the internet looking for inspiration for this tree, I came across an image from an old Women’s Day magazine posted on a tumbler page. The second I saw it the whole tree coalesced in my head. Before that old magazine article I knew I had a bunch of vintage ideas floating around my brain, but “vintage” pretty much includes all of time, so I needed to narrow that down a bit. Going down the tumbler rabbit hole I knew the time period I was going for and how I was going to get there. It was only after I made the ornaments that I noticed the magazine article was from the 70’s, not the late 50’s early 60’s I was going for, but I don’t care. I knew that I needed just a touch of modernity to make this tree interesting and these mod inspired ornaments are just the thing to make it unique.

Step 1

I turned the image black and white and printed it out because I knew I pretty much wanted to make my ornaments as close to the inspiration as possible. If you want to do the same, just scroll down. I included it for you.

Step 2

I used the print out as a template and cut the shapes out of fun foam. Fun foam is a favorite material of mine for ornaments because it’s cheap, durable, and cuts super easy.

Step 3

Then decorate your ornament. I wanted a 3 D look so I used Gallery Glass – a faux stained glass style paint. Dripping little dollops of paint made beautiful dome shapes once they dried, but it does take overnight to dry. I had to work in layers, back to front, letting each layer dry before adding the next layer of dots and embellishments.

Step 4

Just keep going until you get the look you want. You could use a ton of paint mediums to decorate these, and if you’re making them with kids you could even just use stickers.

Step 5

To attach a hanger thread a needle with some yarn or thick thread and poke the needle right through the foam, tying the two ends together to make a loop.

womens day
Here’s the original source of inspiration. Found at Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design. Click on the image to get to full size or this link to get to the source.

mod ornaments

The gallery glass dries a bit sticky so you’ll have to take some care when storing them. You don’t want them to just stick together in one giant ornament for next year. But I think it’s worth it to get that unique shiny look. It takes it from silly old fun foam to something modern and special.

2 thoughts on “Mod Foam Ornaments

Comments are closed.