Christmas Baubles: Where Creativity Meets Christmas

1. Introduction: Ta Ma. Are you getting into the Christmas spirit? And do you want to have some creative fun? Then join me in this Christmas bubble class. I'm Anna Birn Salona. I'm an artist. I'm a professional mess makeker and I'm a skill shared teacher, and I'm going to guide you through the whole process. So it doesn't matter if you're an advanced artist or if you're just starting out. Because I'm going to show you how you choose the right bubbles. I'm going to show you how you choose the right colors. I'm going to show you how you mix your paints and then pour them into unique Christmas bubble that's going to be your class project. But we'll also spice up your Christmas tree or will be a perfect gift for a friend. So if you're ready to have some creative fun, and if you want to make a mess, then come on and join me in this class. 2. Supplies: First, we're going to need the star show, the Christmas bubble. I would recommend you to use whatever bubble you have lying around and that you're not using. At the thrift store because it doesn't need to be anything fancy. Even though I prefer to use glass bubbles, you could also use ceramic bubbles because both of them are nice and smooth and the paint will flow nicely over it. You could also use the plastic bubbles, but the reason I don't is because plastic bubbles are usually made of two separate parts and when they're attached together, you get a slight rim around the bubble. When you pour paint over the bubble, you would still see that rim. If you don't mind, feel free to use it, but that's the reason why I like to use glass bubbles. Glass bubbles more accessible and cheaper than ceramic bubbles. So that's why I use the glass bubbles. Before we can paint them, we have to clean them. You can use alcohol or vinegar. It's just to decrease it. I like to use for this example, but I use both actually. But for this example, I'm going to use the vinegar and I'm using spray vinegar because that's what I'm lying around and that's because it's really easy. I just spray the bubble and clean it with a paper cloth. When your bowls ready, we're going to put it on a stick. And the stick I like to use is reusable straw because like the word says, you could reuse it. You can buy it like everywhere, but to keep the stick standing tall, you need a piece of styrofoam that I usually use or like in this case, a piece of flower foam just to get your stick standing tall so your bubble would stay on top. You won't have to touch it with your hands until it's dry. Of course, we're going to need some paints. You can use the premixed paint. This is just ime, you can buy it at Amazon. You can buy any kind of premixed paint you would like. It's easy. But if you have to buy it, I would just say don't buy it. Go for the regular acrylic paint you have at home. For example, this heavy body paint, you can make it more liquid when you add a medium, and I like to add an acrylic flow medium, but you could also add just a regular glass medium or met medium. See if you have something at home that you can use and otherwise, buy the flow medium. This is a simple one from Amazon, so you don't need expensive stuff, but you could also buy pouring medium. But if you want to mix them, you have to mix them in a cup, of course. You need not only as many cups as the colors of paint you have, but you also need an extra cup where you put those paints together, but I'll show you during the process. And if you would like to hang your bubble in a tree, of course, you need a small piece of ribbon. Well, I think if you have all these things, we're ready to start. 3. Prep your Baubles: First off, we're going to clean this bob. Why? Because if you put paint on here straightaway, you probably will fall off or wouldn't attach as much or as beautiful as it could. That's why we're going to clean this first. First I'll take this off, and then we're going to clean and cleaning is not only because you want to get the better attachment for your paint, it's also to see if this will stay on. This white bubble, you can buy them in every color you want. I use them secondhand because why would you buy them new if you have some lying around that you don't use because you don't like the color. But the only thing is if you put something on there, the bottom layer could shift because they're old, they're not really attached or the color isn't in the glass. It's like a slight film going over. And when that happens, it's just a waste of your pain, it's a waste of your time. So what I like to do is when I clean them, I can see if this will let go, or if it will stay on. Well, I'm using vinegar right now and I'm using spray. Why? Well, you don't have to pray the one that I close by. And I rub rub this. And vinegar or alcohol will get rid of the grease as well. That's why it adheres better to will adhere better to the bowl. Well, now it's completely cleaned and we can start using it. 4. Choose your Paints: Now it's time to choose our colors. And when we choose our colors, we have to think of two things. First of all, they need to be harmonious. Because when they are not, I'll show you on the color wheel. Harmonious, I mean, they're blue, green, blue violet, maybe this side of the color wheel. They are nice together because if you take them on the opposite side of the color wheel, for example, red and green, the typical colors for Christmas, you put them in a cup to make the marble effect. They could blend and you get a brownish color. If the muddy brownish color is totally your vibe, please go ahead and do it. If not, I would recommend you take the colors that really sit together. So in this case, I took blues and I took this one, the golden to give a shimmer effect. And yeah, they will probably go good together. The other thing you have to think of is don't make them too much alike. This is dark one, this is like medium light one. So you can actually see the marble effect. Otherwise, they're too close together the colors, and you won't get the nice marbyn distinct look that you're going after. So please take colors that are not too much alike. I don't have to be the dark, the medium, the light, could be because then you get an obvious effect. But at least take two of them that differ enough. This is the blues. These are actually pouring acritic these are ready made. You can actually go ahead. You don't have to add anything to it. If I go for more than heavy body paints like these, and white, it's a bigger bottle, so I'll keep here. Then we have to use medium to make more liquid. But over here, I took two colors are harmonious. They're more on this side of the wheel. But still, they're totally different. This one is darker, this is a bit lighter and there are two distinct colors. I wanted to add the white. It's going to be less white and then I'm going to use from this golden yellow and this concum pink because I want to have a liltle swirl in there just like I'm doing with the golden. Over here. I'm going to two medium colors and one light color. Well, please pick the ones you want to pick and I'm going to prep, and I'll see you in the next video. 5. Mix your Paints: When you use premixed paint, it's fairly easy to prep before you pour because you don't have to do anything with it. The pouring medium is already in here with acrylic paint. What we do we'll grab a cup and we'll grab one of the colors. It doesn't really matter in what order you want to do it. The only thing you have to be aware of is when you want to see more of a certain color, just put more in there than from the other colors. Put this in there. This one there. You know what? I think I like a little bit more the dark. Put it in there again. Just some dots of the golden, and that's it. You're ready to go. When you use regular acrylic paints like this one, it's heavy body paint, but it doesn't matter if it's this brand, cheaper brand, or if it's like golden, you need to dilute it to make it thinner, to make it pourable. If you use high flow paint, for example, you probably don't have to add as much, probably even nothing compared to this one, which is really thick. So what we're going to do? Again, we grab a cup. No and we put some paint in there. But then we have to add something to liquefy it. I'm using some acrylic high flow medium. I'll just pour it in there. And usually it's about 50, 50. But I'll just to mix it to see if the consistency works. You can use the spatula. You can also use those straws that you pin the ball on later on. I'm going to mix this for you. It looks like since you put white on there, it's going to be lighter but not going to get his own color back because it's going to be transparent. But think of it if you dilute paint, it's going to be more transparent as well. So don't make it too thin and if it's too thin, it will just slide off the Christmas bulb anyway. To see if you have the right consistency, get this out. And see if it drips. Well, it doesn't really drip yet, so I need to put in a little bit more. Not too much more. Like it's Christmas, I can compare it with chocolate milk. If you have the cheap chocolate, pre fat milk. Well, not the prefat you want to have to do with powder. It could be really thin. That's too thin. If you have the melted chocolate, it's just too thick. You have to have the right consistency. So what you do is like the chocolate milk, add it with a bit of cream to make it really crispsy. And then it's a bit thicker. And that's probably about the right consistency. See this? I think this is more or less okay. I actually drip from the cup. You know, it's okay. I can drip a little bit more. I'll add it teeny, tiny bit more. Yes. This flows. Okay. We're done. But we're going to do this for every color because we cannot put them in the same cup. You have to do three different cups and then add them to together. We have the three pains. But I'm not going to put them all in together because maybe we need a bit of it later on. So I'm going to grab. Whoop. Put this aside. An extra cup, and I'm going to put the different pains in here. This one in there. But the pink in there. It looks less, but as you saw the pink just went all the way down. Just a tiny tiny teeny tout white. Maybe just a little bit more pink because I love the pink. And we're done. Now, it's the same as this one, we're ready to pour. 6. Pour your Paint #1: Oh, you're going to grab our first cup, and I'm going to pour. And while I'm pouring, I'm going to swirl. Make it go down nicely on each side. I'll leave a little bit in the cup. And now it will drip. But as you can see, I didn't cover everything. So I need to help it a bit. So it will cover everything. It's I mean, it's, it's round. And usually what I do is grab the stuff that came down and put it on here. Stuff that came down and put it on there. And I'm going to make some new drips because I don't want to interfere with the pattern. But I do want it to go all the way down because top side is going to be the bottom when it hangs in the tree. So I have to push it everywhere. And I'm hardly touching the ball when I'm doing this. The bubble. I say bowl because, yeah, and we say Christmas bowl, it's Christmas bubble. I had to get used to that word. So I'm sorry if I say bowl, I mean Christmas bubble. That's just because English isn't my first language. And if you don't have enough lying around here on the bottom, you can always put something from your cup that's leftover in there. So I don't want to push it up too much. Like I said, I want to keep the pattern. So if the drips go down with a nice and lovely pattern. I will speed this up for you a bit. Thank you. Got the drill. Okay. Let me see now, I'm grabbing something from the cup. And I'm taking it and putting it on here, let it drip. But trying not to interfere with the pattern too much. Sometimes those little creeks just because it won't flow too well if you help the flow. They will close themselves. Usually, I do this on the ground, just because of the mess, but because of the video, I'm doing this on the table, and now I'm like, This is so much better because I don't have to lie flat on my belly to see where I still have some spaces to fill. I have to check, but I think I got everything covered now. Oh. Well, this is it, and all we can do now is just wait for it to dry. When's all dry. I can show you the rest. 7. Pour your Paint #2: Before you go on to the next bubble, make sure you cleaned your hands or anything else that you're going to use. I mean, you can reuse your tools. I reused my flower foam, and I'm going to reuse my pedal because why would I take a new one if I have a perfectly good old one? But the only thing is you don't want to have the blue on the other color. So cleaned my hands, more or less when there's blue in my hands, it's just not it won't give way, but let's see how this will work. And see, I'm swirling a bit as well, so I'm going to it's going to go almost everywhere, but also because it makes it interesting pattern. Leave a bit in the cup, just in case I need it. And like I did last time, I'm going to scoop what's underneath. And put it on here. And you see, I used a bit more orange than pink. And yeah, I like the white part, but actually, not as much as I thought I would. So there's one thing that you could do. You could leave like this and work the same way, like I did. You could say, like, Yeah, what if I just add? That's why I left a bit in the cup. What will happen if I add a little bit more pink to the mix? You see, it's getting more opaque instead of marbly. Do I want that or don't I? If I don't, I can put something on there again, and it could be from the cup. But it could also be the drips. And see what happens if I do this. I mean, you can let it go all organically, let it flow the way you want. But you can manipulate it as much as you like. If you're like, No, well, I like the white a bit while the white is going more down, but I don't like it enough. I could use some gold or silver for the shimmer. Maybe you won't see the gold well enough because yeah, the gold is quite similar to the orange. I could use silver, but let me see. What if I shall I just put it on here? Why not? I'm going to experiment, see what happens. So you see what happens if you start to experiment. Do I like those drops on there? I'm not really sure. We'll see. I'm going to grab this fill up. And since it's all going to pour down, that's why it's called pouring medium. You'll see the drips anyway. And you see over here? I got it more mixed, and now I'm mixing it like this. And if you do that with opposite colors from the color wheel, it gets too muddy. It's already getting muddy when you have colors that are quite similar. And that's also because the paint that's lying underneath is just Well, it's getting muddy what if I take it from the cup? Yes, I don't have the muddy colors too much. I know the pink will actually go down in orange too. Big part over here. And when you have like the part here, I'm going to grab it. It's not the best thing to do, but if I like, do this, it's going to drip by its own. Now it's not going to be all the way. It's going to drip even better. So you get a marbly effect, too. But still, I think I'm going to add a bit more to it. I'm not going to grab the bubble again 'cause I don't want fingerprints on there. The colors combined. See? I'm just adding it and making it flow. So I'm manipulating this a bit. So it's not only like happy accents. The success could be in manipulating, but your downfall could be in manipulating as well, because if you manipulate too much, it doesn't look as fancy anymore. And I know a lot of people do marble bulbs with putting them in a bob. It takes to much work, and it takes up too much materials that I don't have lying around, so that's why I choose to do it. Like this. Anything is when your bubble is just a bit too bank, you could probably see that the drips are going to that side and not to the other side. That's okay. But make sure that the bubbles the drips are going down and not that you get a pimple over here. Little burst because then it's probably not as nice anymore. I'm sorry, probably hear me cracking because it's a styrofoam that I'm leaning against. Well, now we have two bowls and we just have to wait and see what happens with this one. 8. Once they are dry: After a day or so, your bubble will probably be dry. I had this overnight or actually two nights, it feels fairly good, and this is what it looks like right now. And the only thing we have to do is put this thing back in and be careful. It's not too because you can scratch your paint, of course, you can. But it's more when you like hold on too tight to your bubble, it might break because it's glass. Yeah, I just put this on there without varnishing it. You can varnish it. If you varnish it, I prefer spray varnish because it's easier and I do it outside because of ventilation and because you don't get those streaks from a brush. That's why I prefer spray varnish, but you don't really have to. I do it sometimes and today, I really didn't like it too much. Well, we have to hang it on a tree, so I put on a ribbon. I. And just tie it up here and you're done. You can hang it in your Christmas tree or you can gift it to a friend. Well, with this one, it was just bit bent, so it got stuck on here. Well, you can just yank it out. But then it's possible that you would, like, get chips off of here, and this is something you don't want. So if you come across one of those, of course, you can yank it off because the the hanging thing, the hanging thing, I don't know what you call it. This thing will go over it to you probably won't notice it if there's anything chipped. But still, I really don't want to challenge things. So one thing that I like to do is either get pair of scissors or an exacta knife and really gently go through the paint. So it won't leave any marks. Winger done. You can put this one in, and I know this one is bit tight, this one isn't a really expensive one, so that's why it bends easily. Put this in here. Flips. I'll just do it like this. And yes. I'm done. Put this in my tree or gift it to someone. I know these are explosive colors, not everybody likes this color combination. But hey, not everybody is a traditional person, not everybody loves a traditional Christmas. So there's fun. There's a combination for everyone. And I know these are Christmas bubbles. If you like these colors, they look really summery, so you can hang them all year or just in summer. I just leave all the fun until Christmas. 9. Examples: I wanted to show you a few examples. This one I made earlier and you see those dots on here. That's just because I took colors that were just too close together and I thought it got boring. To make less boring, I just made dots on here. The pain that I used was just really heavy body, called a three D pen. I'll check if I can find it really quick. Yes, I found it. This was not the three D pen, but this is a fact liner, but that's more or less the same. It has paint in there, just regular acrylic paint. Well, heavy body, of course. And because it has a small tip, you can just squeeze in it and get blobs on there. But you can do this with regular acrylic paint as well. Just get a small brush or something like a toothpick, and you can make those dots on there. But first practice on a piece of paper or something. When you put it on here, it would be nice and neat. Of course, you can put it on here straightaway you can wipe it off with a cloth or a piece of itching paper if it doesn't work. But just see for yourself. This is a really big one. You can hang this in the tree, but usually I put this on a table as an ornament, but this is a plastic one. I want to show you because I'm not sure if it's clear. Use a plastic one. You have this line because this is where the two halves are connected. Even though you have a real busy pattern, you will still see this line. If it doesn't bother you, just leave at this. But I know it bothers me. That's why I usually just use the glass balls. I'll show you another example. This one actually has a cool effect, but this is what happens. You seal those crackles because the layer underneath was just too old to purse, so it cracked when really when I cleaned it, but when I put the paint on it, and I was lucky that it stayed on here. So I just see those cracks. But sometimes the paint will actually go off and you won't have anything left. So that's why I really want to clean it first with vinegar or with alcohol, so I know that it's not going to crack as much. But on this one, the effect is actually really fun. It looks like spider. So you can actually make a Halloween bowl out of this. For next year, of course. This was a dull one as well, so I decided to paint over it like I did in actually, I'm going to show you with some leftover paints in different video. But if it just doesn't work out, because not all of them work out, you can easily paint on them and you have a lovely ball to give away or hang in your tree. Well, different. It's more Christmasy. Well, I have loads of options I can show you because it's addictive. So when you start doing it, it's going to be terrible everything will go wrong. It will fall over. Everything gets messy. But on the other hand, when it works, it works. You see the gloss on this one, I have varnish on this one, so the glass is really high. Yeah. Go ahead. Try. Have fun. 10. Leftover Paint Projects: One thing you can do with the left to paints is grab a bubble and you don't put it on a straw, you just hold it tight yourself because now you want it to have it nice and steady. You could also just grab some paints and you have a line like this, you make some nice marks on there and you can make flowers. Or you can make random marks. Just be aware that this paint is diluted. They won't cover as much as they do when you paint with regular acrylics on there, which is fairly easy to do as well. You have to be aware that when it's wet, it could still drip. But if we are going for more watercolor effect, maybe you probably don't mind. And you could use regular brushes. I mean, these are the simple flowers. You could think about it a bit more. I'll show you on the other side and what you can do more the abstract work or maybe dip in the paints that has multiple colors and dots like this. So much is possible with leftover paint. I'm not saying you have to do it like this. I'm just telling you that there's so much leftover from a project. If it's the bubbles or if it's the paint or if it's paper, see if you can reuse it. It's not only more sustainable for the environment, for the Earth, but it's a lot more fun as well because it makes you creative in thinking, well, what are we going to do next? The fun thing is, if you put the paint on here and you don't like it. Just grab a cloth or like I'm doing right now, just a piece of paper towel and you can get rid of it. So so many possibilities. If it's dried up already a bit. Still have the vinegar over here. But you can spray with water as well. And you can clean it up and start all over. So don't be scared if you think I don't have any fun painting skills, you do. Beware. My fingers look blue. You don't see it on here please clean your hands before working on something. Maybe it won't go it off, but as long as it don't transfer, otherwise, you're making a lovely bubble and it's pink and all of a sudden get blue fingers. So I just want you to be aware. And most of all, have fun. And you know what? I think I'll keep on playing myself a bit more. For the leftover paint, I just grabbed an old baking tray. And I'm grabbing a piece of paper. This is just some random leftover paper. And with the paints I got leftover, I can actually make something extra. So I still got some in here. Still, I got some pink left. Going to a bit. And then I'm going to move the paper and immediately see why I have this baking tray. You can actually put protective film underneath if you want to because then you will get everything that falls down and you can have another leftover. You can repeat all the leftover processes and with that leftover paint, you can make acrylic skins for your paintings or whatever. But now instead of lifting the tray, I'm going to just lift the paper and I'm going to go to every corner, at least if I have enough paint. I'm going to move the paint around and this is why it's pouring paint. There are lots of techniques how you can actually pour on paper or flat surfaces. But I'm not going to teach you that. That's something you can learn in other maybe skill shared tutorials or you could learn YouTube tutorials, but I'm just going to move this around and you see a unique art piece that you cannot even make yourself. You can actually see it involve coming to life and I have a bit here that I don't like. Moving I didn't do well, this is not something you should do with the pouring paint like just put something in there. But hey, like I said, if you want to learn those techniques, you can go somewhere else. This is just a leftover paint fun projects. I'm going to move the paint until I'm completely done. Then I'll come back to you, no, first, let it dry and then I'll come back to you with what we're going to do with this artwork because we can keep it as a piece of art, but we can do different things with it as well. So the paper that I just used. I think this is cardstock or a mixed media paper. I'm not sure because it's leftover paper. I'll save most of my leftover papers because you never know when you have a different project. But like I said, I'm going to finish this for you and I'll cut back to you later. When this piece of art is nice and dry, you can leave it as is. This one has a little bit of shimmer in there because of the pouring medium. You can leave it as is, or you can make actually something from it because if you make your Christmas bubble for a friend, you probably want to add a little card to say, why you give it to them? Did you appreciate them. So what I love to do is this is a punch. You can also draw something on the back. For example, push this in here. I get it, make it open, so it sweeps out. Nice little cart. Actually, it's even a small bubble as well. Hodes. Smaller punch. It's a hole in there. Then we get a lovely piece of ribbon. This is a label you can add to your present and say, Well, dear friend, love you for being a friend or thank you for helping me out doing this or that. Just a way to say that you think on them and why buy prefab labels if you have those lying around, they're so much more personal and it's fun because it demtly matches the bottle you've made, or maybe put it in your R Journal. Never let anything go to waste. 11. Final Thoughts: I hope you had fun during this course while mixing your paints, pouring your paints, making a fun mess, making those lovely, shiny and unique Christmas bubbles. And I hope you're going to make loads more to spice up your Christmas tree. Please upload your project to the project and resources section. This is where you can fill in all the details and press publish, so I can see your projects, comment on it, and others can get inspired by all the lovely work you did. And I would be so grateful if you would also leave a review because when you leave a review, I know how to get a better teacher, but it's also for others to find this course more easily and maybe have as much fun as you did. So for now, I just wish you beautiful Christmas bubbles, and most of all, a merry, Merry Christmas.