Going out and buying a tree for Christmas is a pain in the ass, no doubt about it. Having to pick out one that will fit in your house, trying not to get tree sap over every inch of your body, protecting your eyes from being impaled on pine needles, tying it to your car in hopes that it won't go flying off when you step on the breaks... where's the fun? I'll tell you where. The fun is decorating it. Well it is if you're not boring. If all you're gonna do is put a string of white lights around it and a few angelic ornaments, you might as well just not bother. Decorating a tree should be an expression of yourself, not some meaningless, hoity-toity waste of time.

But talk is cheap, so today, with the help of some friends, I'm going to show you the extremely simple (and affordable) process of making custom ornaments of your very own. With any luck, you'll end up with some dandy looking decorations and a big mess for someone else to clean up.

First thing you need is some clear glass ball ornaments, preferably the larger ones because there's more surface area for you to decorate. You can find these ornaments at pretty much any crafts store such as Michaels and a 4-pack shouldn't cost you more than a buck or two at most. If you can't find one of these places, just look for an elderly lady driving in a car and follow her. Chances are, she's going to a crafts store. Next you'll want some basic decorating supplies, and as long as you made it through elementary school, chances are you already know what I'm talking about. Construction paper, scissors, old magazines, glue, pipe cleaners, markers, plutonium... whatever you can get your grubby little hands on. If you can find a pack of multicolored glitter glue, pick that up too because your balls always look better with glitter. That's right, I said it.

"YOUR BALLS ALWAYS LOOK BETTER WITH GLITTER" -RoG

Next on your list, you need some hyper friends in Santa hats to work around the clock on creating badass custom holiday ornaments with you. Unfortunately, one of them stole my Santa hat so I had to wear Re's cowboy hat with the mud-flap girls on it instead. Well, it's close enough to a Santa hat I suppose...

Now it's time to get started with the decorations. Remove the top hook from the glass ornament ball and put the tip of the glitter glue tube inside it. From there, just squeeze the glue while you rotate the glass ball to create some nifty inner patterns. Depending on what kind of glitter glue you get, you can actually just pour a bunch of it into the glass ball and then shake it up to come up with some cool looking designs as well.

Now that you've got the inside of your glass ball decorated, put the hook back on and start searching through your magazines for pictures to paste onto it. Once you've found some photos you like, cut them out put paste on them, and then place them around the outer edges of the ball. Whether you're using glue or paste doesn't really matter, just make sure you don't have one of those sick friends who loves the taste of the stuff. As for what magazines to use, I can't tell you that really, it's all a matter of taste. Our group found a lot of great photos to use in the Weekly World News, Fangoria Magazine, an old promotional metal CD catalogue and a Halloween supplies catalogue.

Just keep on decorating your ornaments with magazine/catalogue clippings until they're almost all covered up, unless of course you want to show more of the inner decorations. You can actually decorate the inside of the ornaments with more than just the glitter glue too. Just find random crap around the house to put in the balls. It's a great way to get rid of trash that you've been far too lazy to throw out for the past six months.

As you can see, these two balls are filled will all sorts o' stuff that would've otherwise ended up in the trash. Tissue paper in one ball, old Halloween candy gummy fangs 'n brains in the other. Hey, I may have not liked how they tasted, but they sure do look cool inside these ornaments don't they?

So that's really all there is to it. Only you know when your glass ball ornament is finished and ready to bring you holiday joy... and your guests holiday horrors.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, here's a little gallery of our custom holiday ornaments.

The "I enjoy being a girl" ball.

The "Smoking monkey with antlers" ball.

The "Please don't scare Christopher Walken" ball.

The "Quintesson shall judge you" ball.

The "Abstract art hurts my brain" ball.

The "Laugh at a floating boob while the pope pukes on celebrities" ball.

The "Run from the rabid dog before he puts your head in a soup bowl" ball.

The "Glimpse of heaven" ball.

Are you inspired yet? Good, now get to work on making some custom ornaments of your very own. And when you're done decorating, take some photos of your new ornaments and email them to me. If I receive enough photos, I'll eventually put up an online gallery of your custom ornaments. Let's face it... your family isn't gonna wanna see these things, but the brave citizens of the internet will gladly look upon your masterpieces!

-RoG-

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