Decorating Glass Ball Ornaments 

You can purchase clear glass ball ornaments and decorate them.  You will have access to the inside of the ornaments by pulling out the top where a hanger would go to insert something inside.

So what to put inside?  How about sparkles?  Fancy shredded paper?  If you have some pretty yarn or roving you could use that.  Or use strips of irridescent mylar (plastic like) in it and top it off with a big lace and gold bow.

Try stuffing potpourri into glass balls, then dress them up with lots of gold trim, burgundy and green ribbon.  Looks rather Victorian.

If the balls will hold it, you could try colored sand for a nice effect. One version of  colored sand is to make it from salt and chalk.  Put some salt in a dish, take a colored chalk and write on the salt with it. The chalk color transfers to the salt.

How about putting something on the outside of the ornament?  This ornament is from our 2001 ornament swap, it has machine embroidery on it by Kyra Tenpenny.

Or you could tat or crochet a small doily to put around the outside of the glass ball.  If the ball is clear glass, you'll want to use deeply colored thread for contrast.  Nice dark reds and greens are available. On a darker background, white thread looks good, as in this ornament by Christiane Eichler

If you want to cover the ornament with a tatted or crocheted motif, you'll find many published patterns to get you started.  You may prefer to use satin ornaments for this purpose.  If you find that the ornament wants to fray a bit, try a little hairspray to prevent this. Papier mache ball ornaments are also available.

You can paint your ornament, too, of course.  Metallic paints are particularly festive, or DecoArt Liquid Rainbow [tm] paints.