Christmas time is coming

Tis the season for Christmas crafting!

For the past 4 years, I have hosted an ornament exchange. Just like a cookie exchange, each friend brings enough homemade ornaments to share one with each of the other guests. Usually the group ends up having about 10 women. So, each year I get at least 10 new homemade ornaments for my tree! We do it as a carry-in brunch. In past years there have been about 400 kids running around while we try to share our ornaments and eat some food while visiting. This year, there will only be a few kiddos as many moms in the group have remained as all of our kids have grown and are now in school. Hopefully this year there can be more visiting and less kid chasing, especially since this house is not nearly as kid friendly as the last.

I hope to keep the tradition of the ornament exchange for many years to come! I get so excited looking for ornaments to make.

The first year was the absolute best for me (if I do say so myself). I made cinnamon ornaments...but not just your average cinnamon ornaments. These were quite possibly the best (and most involved) cinnamon ornaments ever. I started with a large oblong star shaped base, which I lightly dry brushed with a mustard yellow and outlined with dashes and dots, to give it that country flair. Set a-kilter on top of the star was a large burgundy painted heart. And on top of the heart was a cute little baby Jesus (complete with a rosy cheeked painted face), wrapped in swaddling clothes (strips of muslin - I joked and called him mummy Jesus) and laid in a manger (pieces of raffia fanned out behind him). And no ordinary hanger would do for this ornament. I used a twisty wire loop. This was by far, one of my best crafting endeavors ever. Lots of time, creativity and hot glue were used on these ornaments. I was so very proud of this ornament that I wanted to share it with everyone possible. And in my pride, without realizing it, I ended up giving away all of these amazing ornaments without saving one for myself. :( No awesome baby Jesus ornament hangs from the branches of my tree. Some day I will have to try to make this ornament again so that I will have one for myself. But I don't know if I can ever replicate the first try.

Every year there are stand out ornaments at the exchange - my sister always wows, one year with a layered paper ball (which were so awesome but also so time consuming that she never would have completed them all without her loving sister's help - lol), another year with the cutest little felt gnome - because some people just have it in them to craft. They can turn scraps of paper or fabric or random stuff from around the house (cinnamon and hot glue!) into something really cool.

Some ornaments aren't stand out for their crafting skill level, but they are loved by me just as much. Something about everyone taking the time to make an ornament for everyone else, knowing the love that we all put into our ornaments, just makes me feel happy as I hang all that love onto my tree each year and think of the people who made the ornaments for me. Also some Christmas magic must come into play by tying all the memories of the time we spend together during our exchange into the felt and paper and glass of the ornaments.

As I started looking for ideas for this year - and I have found quite a few - I came across a paper ball that I thought was really cool and decided to try making some. It's not THE ornament for this year, so I'm going to share it here. We all try to keep our ornaments mostly secret until the exchange. Although, as I was searching yesterday I came across one really cool item on etsy that I had to share with my friend, Angi and wouldn't you know that it just happens to be what she is making this year! She and I are definitely sisters in crafting!

If you want to make a paper ball it's pretty simple and only a few ingredients are required:

Paper - enough to cut 20 circles of whatever size (1" to 2" is best)

Circle cutting tool - a punch would be easiest, if you have one. I used my Creative memories circle cutters. Or you could even go old school and print or trace the same size circle onto your paper and cut it out with scissors.

Glue - I used Aileen's Tacky Glue and it worked great.

Hanger - ribbon, string, etc.

1. Choose your paper. Completely up to your taste for the colors, patterns, etc. The only stipulation is that it should not be too heavy or the folds will be hard to make. I just used standard scrapbook paper.

2. Cut your circles. 20 of the same size circle make one ball. 1-3/8" circles made about a 2-1/4" ball. 2-1/8" circles made an almost 4" ball.

3. Fold your circles into equilateral triangles (you remember that term from 8th grade geometry, right? It means same length sides...or at lest that's what I remember.) This might be a little tricky at first, so make an extra circle that you can adjust your folds until they look right. I'm sure there's a template online somewhere, or you could paste a triangle over/inside the right size circle in Word to get the size right, but I found that it wasn't too tough to eyeball it. They don't have to be perfect, but they do need to be pretty close.

After you have the first circle folded nicely, just lay it onto another circle, back to back, and use it as a guide for all the other folds.

4. Glue your circles together on the folded flaps. Start with 2 sets of 5 in a circle/cone. And then make a straight strip of 10 into a ring. Lastly, glue all 3 parts together to form the ball.

5. Embellish! I haven't done this part yet, but I saw several ideas online. Ink the edges, spray with glitter/shimmer, add rhinestones at the connection points, or whatever else sounds fun!

6. Hang. I didn't incorporate a hanger as I was making my ornaments, but it's probably not a bad idea. I'm going to use pretty coordinating ribbon to hang mine. I think it would work well to tie the end in a knot and put it in at one of the connection points along with some extra glue.

Wouldn't it be cool to use pictures as the paper?!?! Oh, I think I just came up with the idea for grandparent Christmas gifts this year!!!