i'm dreaming of an old christmas...diy vintage christmas ornaments

sue me, people. i'm wicked into vintage these days. i mean, it's getting pretty bad. in an awesome way, of course. i blame yardsales. and thrift stores. it's just so freaking easy and cheap to find cool, old things. i mean, as i type, i'm sitting next to a my giant lawn ornament, frosty. naturally, he's in my kitchen. where else do you put a vintage frosty the snowman?
i *might also blame lady m. freaking christmas songs, commercials, freaking SISTERWIVES (i realize i will be forever mocked by my family for this admission...jerks, *sniff, sniff), they all make me cry. i'm suddenly more nostalgic than i've ever been. so perhaps that's why whenever i'm at a thrift store, i'm always eyeing the cool, vintage-y looking things that most everyone else is quickly passing by (seriously, people. what's wrong with you?).

i knew with my christmas decor that i'd want to use some vintage christmas ornaments. (i've got a couple projects in mind for said ornaments)...but the problem is, they're super hard to come by in yardsales and thrift stores. and any ornaments that my parents had were destroyed in a fire when i was 14 (i know,you should feel so dang sorry for me. it was traumatic...hey...wanna send me your vintage ornaments? i'm sure that would heal any wounds. no,  just kidding. it was hard to deal with but my family is strong. we followed the counsel of muppets and eventually moved right along...do-de-do-do-de-do)...anyway, i was at a loss as to where to find them.
my friend and i went to an antique store the other day and i found a box of brilliantly vintage ornaments and a gorgeous bottle brush tree, asked the lady how much they cost and she said 125. because i'm a yardsale/thrifter, i thought she said, 1.25. but no, she meant one HUNDRED twenty five. i mean, i get it. they're old. but $26/ornament. waaaay to much for me. doesn't she know i have a kid who loves to hold pretty things and will most likely love that $26 ornament a bit too much?
really. all i wanted was an ornament that looked old. i mean, i'm all for sentimentality. we have a few pieces that are super special to us. but in this case, i was just going for the look (i'm not kidding about lady m and her love of loving every piece of awesomeness in my house-she's currently napping with my owls)...
and then it hit me.
i mean, if we can make glass christmas trees look old, then surely, i can do it to an ornament.
and that, my friends, is when i discovered how to make my own vintage-esque ornaments for...almost free.
i found several boxes of plain christmas balls at a thrift store-the most i paid for one box was .75 (and that's because it had 12 ornaments in it).
here are the firstlings of my flock...

ps. how does one take a pic of glass balls? as you can see, you get a great image of my hand holding the camera, some of my kitchen. just so dang glorious. *sigh.
anyway, you take these lovely little guys and give them a vinegar and water bath. ( i found that 1/2 cup of water to an 1/8 cup vinegar is the way to go)

do them one at a time. trust me on this. the vinegar acts pretty quickly. leave it in there for about 30 seconds (more or less depending on the look you're going for).
when you pull it out, make sure to drain the liquid. and then quickly take your finger and while applying a small amount of pressure, flake off some of the paint. pat dry with a paper towel and
then let them dry. i just put mine of a plate with some paper towels to soak up all of that vinegar nastiness (ps. be prepared...your space will not smell good. ewww...vinegar. yuck). i let mine dry for about a little over an hour.

and after that, they're ready to go be brilliant in my house. i'll be showing you what i did with mine shortly-but in the meantime, just gaze on their genius. can you guess which one is really a true vintage ornament?

freaking crap people. i want to go back to the antique store and show that antiquer how awesome they look. and inform her that i won't ever be buying her $125 bottle brush tree-(ok, but let's be fair, it was really, really, really beautiful and if we ever win the lottery or come into some absurd amount of money, i'm pretty sure i'd buy it. there. i said it). but seriously. as prince so intelligently said, [faux-vintage ornaments], "u got the look."
and don't tell the lady m,  but if she does happen to love one of these so much that it meets it christmas ball maker in the sky, i'm out five cents. i think i'll be ok.

things i've learned:
1. change the vinegar/water solution frequently. i did all of my gold and silver ornaments first. mostly because the silver ones weren't turning out the way i had hoped. so i let them hang out in the bath water to pick up some of the gold flakes of paint. they actually look super cool that way. but. the second i did a green ornament, the water got contaminated with green flakes...the ornaments pick these all up in the water. so. trust me. change the water after each color set.
2. something cool is happening to some of them. i must not have gotten all of the liquid out of the inside on a few and i can see the paint starting to flake on the inside. i'm going to let it hang out in there for a little bit longer and then i'll take a q-tip to it and see what that does...
3. in the pic above, the smaller, red ornament is from my dad's collection. hard to spot, right?