these are sweet...

i could easily fill a few with cat hair :P

Me, too, phlora -- or bunny fur... LOL

Small silk flowers (stems removed, of course).

Chunks of tinsel garland or icicles.

Molted feathers from your pet bird -- prettier than shed fur!

Confetti.

Light-weight plastic beads (not glass, too heavy).

If you buy old painted inside glass ornaments from a thrift store, you can remove the paint. I put hot water in them and the green/blue/red comes out and leaves streaks of silver (almost like mercury glass). They look magical with little things in them.

I would try cranberry!!

Fill clear ornaments with dried flowers from a wedding bouquet for a nice gift or keepsake.

Yarn!

Look for these at craft stores where they are even more inexpensive. I got a box of 12 for 3.99 at Hobby Lobby last year.

As for an idea for what to put in them: I was thinking of spraying some adhesive inside the hole at the top and then filling it with glitter powder. I really like glittery ornaments, but I hate that they shed, so that solves that problem.

I did this a couple years ago after I found it hard to find teal blue and brown ornaments. I used acrylic paint and puff paint on the exterior. The only thing I will say, is that since they are clear, they don't show up in the tree too well. So I would recommend doing something bright and bold in color. Some green herbs hanging in a clear bulb in a green tree won't show up too well.

Such a great idea! xxx
http://reallyliteral.blogspot.com/

grrr...I just passed up a ton of these at the store last night! I now must make a trip back---love this idea! I have a major glitter fetish, so I'm feeling the need to sparkle-ize some bulbs:)

I love all the new clear glass ornaments that are being introduced this season. I'm hoping I can still find enough during the after Christmas sale so I can give my tree a new theme next year.

@somecraftydame, you are clearly very aptly named--love that idea!

A little bit this feels like the third post about this same idea.

@ somecrafydame, thanks SO much for the hint, I was just about to press "Place your order" until some thing stopped me and I read the entire post. 39.99 (after tax and shipping), what was I thinking!?

There's a glue made for glittering the inside of clear ornaments but I can't remember the name of it. I work at a craft store and we use it for our ornaments and it works really well.

I've been doing this for years. I've told everyone I know that when they decide to get rid of their old, scratched glass balls, I'll take them.
To clear off the paint from the outside and the silver from the inside, I've used bleach (so far, haven't come across a good, safer alternative - take precautions). I fill them with whatever's handy - bits of shiny garland, tiny silk flowers, sparkly mini beads, sprigs of rosemary or lavendar - but I've done a lot of them as beach ornaments. I collect sand from the beaches I go to, then put some in the balls and use a fine tip marker to hand write the name of the beach. With some, I also mix in some glitter, and some super-tiny shells I found in a craft store. Seal off the neck with hot glue and stick on a beachy bead (the hole in the bead allows for threading wire or fishing line to hang it).
I've used a fishing net looking thing over the window of my little kitchen eating area - it came with a few shells attached and I've added more, and some of the ornaments so I can enjoy them every morning with my coffee.

My kids just made some of these for our cousins. We did:
one with feathers
one with little broken sticks and pine needles
one with pearl and seed beads
one with small colored sea shells
They were cute and super easy for kids.

I Made Some Recently, I dipped mini marshmallows in glue and then in glitter,so they would sparkle. And then put the Marshmellows inside, they turned out really good, But make sure the marshmallows will fit in the hole!