Ornaments

Since our Christmas decorations are all in storage, I decided to try making our ornaments this year. The thought being that it would be more economical. I'm not actually sure if it was or not but it turned out fun and Anna even got to help on some.

I divided them into two kinds, those I could do with Anna around and helping and those I needed to do on my own. The latter category included those that needed a glue gun. With Anna, we made clothes pin reindeer. Mine looked pretty standard. Anna, not to be tied down by convention had a whole slew of different looks.

Most of them looked like the one on the far right. We decided they were girl reindeer (so no antlers). The other kind we made together are pom pom snowmen who are not quite done. They are put together but need faces and such. I'll post those when they are done.

The ornaments I made on my own are mainly things glued to styrofoam balls and fun with buttons. So, here are the styrofoam ball ones, mostly involving ribbons. I made two of each one.

I especially like the way the red ribbon looks on this one. I wish I had thought of it before I did the white ones but oh well.

These are split peas. They took a bit a work but I really like the way they turned out. I divided the ball into four parts and alternated the round and the flat sides of the peas for variety.

Then onto the button ones. I first got the idea for these from Martha Stewart and went from there.

These are more red and burgundy. I'm not sure why they look so pink. Then I worked on putting buttons on the styrofoam balls.

This one is a tad harder to see because of the way Anna is holding it. It's a Christmas tree out of buttons with the buttons getting larger as you go down.

And a snowflake. Anna helped a little bit with these last two and discovered the hazards of the glue gun. Mainly that the glue can come through the button holes or ribbon and burn you.

We also noticed that we lost the baby Jesus for our nativity set so I glues ribbons on the rest of the characters and put them on the tree (Joseph is in the picture with the red and green wreath).

So this is what I have been doing with my evenings when I'm too tired to go shopping but have enough energy to sit up at the table. I'm quite pleased with how they have all turned out and hope to hold onto them for some time.