DIY Ornaments

Once December 1^st hits, then it’s time to put up the Christmas tree. Mine went up this weekend. Usually it’s a work in progress as the first step is putting up the tree and then the next few days and weeks, we add ornaments to it.

We thought that it might be a fun idea to make some ornaments this week. In the past we have painted ceramic and wooden shapes, but this year we thought we’d use the plastic ornaments that you can find at the craft store which open up. We’re going to open them up and fill them to decorate as well as paint them.

Again, this one is a really inexpensive craft to make with items that you can easily get at the dollar store or probably even find at home.

Painting the ornaments takes more time so you’ll want to do this further in advance if you want to give them away or hang them up. We’ve picked a variety of colours for paint to use; some are Christmasy and some are not. We also have a bunch of different sizes of brushes and some sponges as well. You can pre-sketch out some designs or you can free style it and come up with your design as you go. Do whatever you like. Here’s what we came up with...

This is a drip paint ornament. What we've done is pick a couple of matching colours and dripped them into the ornaments and moved the paint around by turning the ornaments. We did this process a few times to get all of the area covered. Then we let them hang upside down overnight to drain out the excess paint and this is what we got...

Another option to is to fill the ornaments with curled ribbons, shredded snow, larger glitter bits, small punched shapes, or coloured paper or paper from old books so that you can see the words.

For both, you can put ribbons/bows on the outside to adorn the finished ornaments.  

Now you can hang them up in your tree or around your house or you can make a bunch and hand them out as gift this year.  

Snowman Decoration

We’re taking inspiration from our “Snowmen Tobogganing” card this week and we are making a homemade snowman decoration to adorn your house this season.

You just need some basic supplies, some of which you may already have in your house and if you don’t, they can be very inexpensive to pick up. We went to the dollar store and found a few things that we needed.

You’ll need two-three Styrofoam balls (one bigger than the other if you’re using two or three different sized ones if you’re using more), white glue and something to apply it with, thick decorative ribbon for a scarf, a bread knife, assorted buttons, toothpicks, shredded snow, a glue gun, felt for a hat, and some popsicle sticks.   

Prep your work space because this could be a messy craft. We laid out some newspaper over our table and then we also got out a paper plate and placed all of our snow on that.

Our snowman is going to be a two baller so first of all, cut what’s to be the bottom of the smaller (head) ball and then the top of the (body) so that they can lay flat when connected together.

Now apply the white glue to both balls and roll in the shredded snow. Let it dry and allow the glue to harden.

Next use the glue gun to glue the top and bottom together.

Glue gun on buttons down the center and buttons for the eyes and mouth.

For the nose we have taken some orange cardstock and cut it into a triangle and glued it on.

Glue a cut in half popsicle stick on both sides as the arms.

Now it’s time for the hat. We’re using some felt pieces that we had left over from a Christmas blog craft that we have done in the past. Take a piece of felt, we chose green. Make it into a cylinder and glue the edges together; make sure it fits your snowman’s head. Gather about half of it as the top “pom” and secure it with an elastic band. Cut slits in the top half to make it look like tassels. Now cover the elastic band with string, pipe cleaner, or ribbon. Now you have a little hat. You can just rest it on top or if you'd like, put a little dab of glue on it to keep it in place.

Lastly, use a wider patterned/decorative piece of ribbon and tie/glue it around the neck of your snowman as a scarf.  

Here’s our finished snowman...

Walking in a Winterland

“Sleigh bells ring
Are you listening
In the lane
Snow is glistening
A beautiful sight
We're happy tonight
Walking in a winter wonderland”

We’re keeping it simple this week and letting you go through a walk in a virtual winter wonderland. We have some pictures of actual winter wonderlands that Nicole took when she was traveling a few years back. So if you don’t have any snow, maybe these pictures will transport you to a snowy place.