First Trip to the Beach Ornament with a Floating Photo, Sand, & Shells!

First Trip to the Beach Ornament with a Floating Photo, Sand, & Shells!

Several years ago, I shared a tutorial for how to make a floating photo ornament, and it featured a translucent picture (very cool), vinyl details, and sand from my oldest son’s first trip to the beach. Make sure you check it out for a complete step-by-step tutorial with LOTS of details.

Rowan’s ornament is the cutest little keepsake (and y’all know how I love my keepsakes, especially Christmas ones), and I just adore pulling it out of storage and adding it to our Christmas tree every holiday season.

Since my youngest son, Brayden, just had his first trip to the beach this past summer, it was only appropriate for me to make him an ornament of his own.

Ya know, what you do for one, you gotta do for the other…

This one was made in the same way with just a few minor changes:

• Used photo paper instead of translucent film
• Printed the trip details on the photo instead of using a vinyl decal
• Added shells along with the sand

Here are all the juicy details on how to easily make a first trip to the beach ornament of your own!

Supplies

Here’s what I used to make this first trip to the beach ornament for my youngest little man:

• Plastic disc ornament (the M&M style)
• Photoshop Elements
• Sheet of 5×7 glossy photo paper
• Printer
• Scissors & ruler
• Sand & shells we brought back from the beach
• Mini craft funnel & tablespoon
• Twine
• Hot glue gun & stick

Prepping the Floating Photo

The first thing I did was prep the picture of Beach Brayden so it could be used as a floating photo inside the ornament. This was done in Photoshop Elements.

First, I used the Cookie Cutter tool to crop it into a perfect circle that was sized a precise 3.65″ so it would fit snuggly inside the 100mm ornament.

Next, I applied a slight Dry Brush filter to make it a little artsy, then added the text (and if you’d like to find out more about the font I used, you can find it here).

If you don’t have Photoshop, no worries! You can always add a vinyl decal like I did with Rowan’s first trip to the beach ornament, use a different (free) program like PicMonkey or Canva, or even just handwrite the deets with a Sharpie.

Once the photo was ready, I printed it out on a sheet of 5×7 glossy photo paper using our home printer, then cut it out with a pair of scissors.

You can see I left a small rectangle on the top. This is sized at one inch across and a half inch tall and is what keeps the photo upright and “floating” inside the ornament. It’ll remain inside the ornament’s top and hold the photo in place, but won’t be seen behind the topper.

Adding the Floating Photo to the Ornament

Next, it was time to add the photo to the inside of the ornament.

After placing the ornament in something to hold it upright and stable since I don’t have four hands (I used a small plastic bin from my WorkBox 3.0 craft cabinet), I carefully rolled up the edges of the photo like a taquito (but not nearly as tasty), then slid it into the ornament.

The two sides will sort of “pop open” and go back into place once inside, but you might need to give them a little encouragement with your finger or capped pen.

Looking cute already! If you wanted to stop right now, you’d have yourself an adorable personalized ornament, no doubt.

However, since we brought back some sand and seashells from our trip, I wanted to add them to Brayden’s ornament and really amp up the beach factor.

Adding the Sand and Shells to the Ornament

Here’s the setup and tools I used for adding the sand and seashells to the ornament. As you can see, it’s REALLY fancy and high tech.

Using a super handy mini craft funnel (it’s so tiny!) and tablespoon, I poured some sand to the front AND back sides of the photo…

…then popped in a couple small seashells as well as a fragment of one that the boys found on the beach during our trip.

They made excellent seashell hunters.

Finishing the Ornament Topper with Twine

All that was left was finishing the ornament’s topper.

For this part, I just hot glued some twine around and on top of the metal topper including the ring, then made a small loop out of the twine for hanging.

And with that, Brayden’s ornament was now ready to display on the Christmas tree!

(Sorry for this terrible late-at-night-blurry-iPhone-picture…it was the only time I could craft since both boys were finally in bed!)

Brayden’s Finished First Trip to the Beach Ornament

And here’s how Brayden’s first trip to the beach ornament looks hanging on our Christmas tree! Isn’t it just so adorable?? I mean, really.

That face is nothing but pure joy and excitement. I’m so happy to have this keepsake ornament that matches his older bro’s.