DIY Makeover of Large Christmas Ball Ornaments

One of my coworkers dragged three large bags of these giant ornaments down from the upstairs clearance area for me. So, of course, I had to figure out a way to remake them and include them in my fundraiser Christmas tree display.

They certainly were big and ugly at the time and in desperate need of a DIY makeover.

Armed with cans of gold metallic paint, my hot glue gun, glittery ribbon, and floral picks, all eleven of these once ugly and damaged 10″ oversized Christmas ornaments look totally different afterwards.

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THIS POST IS PART OF THE ‘DO IT OVER’ DESIGNERS LINK PARTY.  A GROUP OF DESIGNERS WHO TAKE SOMETHING OLD AND/OR UNUSED AND ‘DO IT OVER’ INTO SOMETHING NEW. THESE ITEMS CAN BE FOUND IN CLOSETS, BARNS, GARAGES, YARD SALES, THRIFT STORES, YOU NAME IT!

This project was inspired by the Fantasy of Trees fundraiser event for our local Children’s Hospital.  Which actually takes place the week of Thanksgiving.  My post of the finished ornament makeover will not include photos of the ornaments on the finished tree – yet. My scheduled install date for my donated tree is on the exact same day that this Do It Over Challenge post was scheduled.  Once my setup is complete, I will update this post to showcase the tree with the ornaments included. 

11-25-25 Update: The photo of the finished tree has been added to the end of this post.

It all started with these once soft pink colored 10″ plastic ball ornaments from my workplace.  But how did they get so faded and damaged?

Good question.  I think it was three years ago when our shop owner purchased products at the Christmas market for a strikingly pink-themed tree.  It must have been soon after the Barbie movie came out when the pink theme in Christmas decor took off.  These are definitely not the size of ornaments you can find at Hobby Lobby. They are huge!

Included with her purchases were these bouncy ball-sized 10″ silvery pink ornament balls.  Because of their size, not many people purchased them.  The following year, these pink-themed ginormous Christmas balls were moved to the front window area of the store – in perfect sight of small children the minute you walked in the door.  As you can imagine, they thought they were indeed bouncy balls. Nearly every day, we heard one of these “balls” hit the floor with the distinct shatterproof ornament thud. Whatever paint remained on the ornaments after the kids bounced them slowly discolored in the sun that season.

For the last two years, they have been moved from one spot or another in the upstairs clearance section marked half off. At least upstairs, when a kid got the urge to bounce them, it was on a carpeted floor!

The store owner, aka my boss, was excited to help with my fundraiser tree design when I was selected for one of the designer slots. My donated Christmas tree design is based around a pack of 40 pink colored ornaments I snagged for free at the At Home store last year. The pink will be an accent color nestled around generous amounts of white and gold ornaments. The offer to “give” me the surviving eleven large pink ornaments was one of her ways of helping me with donations for the event. She gave me a massive discount on other items.

I avoided committing to taking them for two months. I had no idea how to decorate a tree with ornaments that big! Our friendship and the lure of a decorating challenge finally made me say yes.

There was no way I was going to find spray paint to match the pink ornaments I wanted to use, so I chose to remake these giant-sized ornaments with gold metallic paint.

So I am back to the day that my coworkers “helped” bag them up because they were tired of moving them around, too. I should rephrase that to say they knew I was the only person who could give them a proper makeover and a sense of purpose, just as much as they were glad to get them out of the clearance section. 

The transformation took weeks – not because it was hard.  The steps are really very basic and straightforward.  I can thank the Southern weather forecast for the stressful delays.  As usual in the south, we have experienced 80-degree temperatures in the Fall, which quickly dropped to 20 degrees overnight, with lots of rain, before climbing back into the 70s last week. Thankfully, I finally got all of the ornaments spray-painted in gold a week before the install date.

Below are the steps I took to transform these rather large ornaments:

1. Sand the ornament’s surface with a Scotch-Brite pad. This removed the flaking paint and prepped the surface for the spray paint.
2. Clean the entire surface of the ornament with Isopropyl Alcohol with cotton pads. Allow to dry.
3. Hang the large ornaments on dowel rods supported by two sawhorses. Outside or in a well-ventilated area is best.
4. Apply at least one coat of white spray primer.  Allow to dry.
5. Apply two coats of Metallic Gold Spray Paint, allowing each coat to dry before the next.  Touch up as needed.

How I Plan To Use These Large Ornaments For My Tree Design

I have saved seven of the eleven spray-painted ornaments to hang in the tree on install day. Below is a sneak peek of how it looked on my “staging” tree at home. Although they were very intimidating to work with at first, I realized that ornaments of this size are a great way to fill a tree with fewer ornaments and can really change the look of your usual holiday decor.

The last four ornaments got a little extra makeover.

Part of the requirements for the Christmas tree fundraiser is to include a tree skirt and decorations around the bottom of the tree—the perfect place to display the last four large, decorated ornaments. 

Decorated with ribbon and pinecone picks.

First, I glued small cut pieces of floral foam to the tops of the ornaments to make it very easy to add the white and gold faux pinecones. Each large ornament is accented with the same style ribbons featured in the tree design.  This same ribbon is used for bows on the empty wrapped presents that will be nestled underneath the tree.  

My next challenge is to get these decorated ornaments and everything else I need to decorate my fundraiser tree to the convention center, all in one piece. I hope you stop by again to see the updated photos and see how my tree – and the decorated oversized ornaments – turned out.

The finished tree:

Please visit the other talented bloggers who are participating in the ‘Do It Over’ challenge this month, listed below.

The Apple Street Cottage

Birdz of a Feather

Exquisitely Unremarkable

Modern on Monticello

Pandora’s Box

Purple Hues & Me

Sum of Their Stories

Vintage Style Gal

Hugs,

Ephesians 3:20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us.