Ornaments

And here it is!!!! The BEST homemade ornament EVER (if I do say so myself...and I do)!!! During the ornament exchange, my sister pulled out a "special" ornament just for me. It was the original Baby Jesus ornament that I made and then gave them all away. It was so super sweet of her and I was about to tear up over it until she broke into the sweetness with a "now you can quit complaining about not keeping one of these for yourself!" comment. Sisters! HA! Love you Melissa!!!! You do have to admit that it really is awesome, right?!?!

I have made quite a few ornaments this year.

Ever wonder what 10 starfish would look like if they were painted like Santas? Well, wonder no longer. These are the ornaments that I made for the exchange this year. I bought the starfish 3 years ago in Daytona Beach on a trip that we made after Christmas. This was after the first ornament exchange and because it was fresh on my mind, and I had made Santa ornaments before, I bought the starfish in anticipation of making them the following year.

Funny story about them...at the store, I had picked out my 10 starfish and left them at the counter to be wrapped while we continued to shop. When we were done looking around the store, I went back to the counter to pay for my starfish, only to find they were gone. Apparently, there were 2 cashiers and 2 different people buying something that had to be wrapped. The cashier that wasn't the one I dealt with, sold my starfish to the other person! The really funny part is that they weren't there to buy starfish! What a surprise they got when they got home and opened the box!

So, back to the ornament saga! Like I said, I bought these starfish 3 years ago. However, for the following 2 years, I forgot that I had bought them until after I made my ornaments for the exchange. This year however, I remembered the starfish when it came time to plan for the ornaments. Of course, things never go smoothly, so although I remembered that I had bought the starfish, when we moved I packed them away "somewhere" and I couldn't find where that somewhere was. I figured that, being the logical packer that I am, I had to have put them with my Christmas decorations, but when I started searching for them I wasn't having any luck. I have 6 plastic storage containers full of Christmas decorations. Can anyone guess which box I found them in?!? That's right, the very last one. And by that, I don't mean the last box that I looked in because obviously I wouldn't keep looking in more boxes after finding them. I mean that I had to look through all 6 boxes to find the starfish and they were in box #6! But I did find them and the end result was very cute!

This is the "dolled-up" version of one of the paper ball ornaments that I posted about earlier. I added the ribbon hanger and some glitter snow paint along the seams. Pretty cute, huh? (BTW - see the little Santa poking his head out of the corner? That was my original starfish Santa. He's quite a bit bigger than the exchange Santas, but you work with what you've got!)

My sister found this paper star ornament idea online. Easy and fun. If you're dying to make it, comment on here and I'll post instructions. The picture doesn't do it justice - it's a lot cuter in person.

This Santa is probably the cutest of the ornaments that I made this year. He almost caused the starfish Santas to be delayed yet another year. But, after making one and realizing how much work he took, I went back to the starfish.

This is another "copied from the internet" ornament. Actually, I think they all are. Maybe not the starfish. I can't remember if I came up with that idea on my own or copied it from somewhere too. Probably copied it. I'm crafty and cool, but better at copying than actually making an original. The hardest part was getting the snowflake to spread back out after shoving it into the ornament hole. In the words of my crafting buddy, Angi, it's a bit "wonky", but still very pretty. The picture could be better, but I liked it best without the flash and there wasn't enough daylight at the time. You get it though. The "snow" in the bottom is iridescent. So pretty!!! The etsy shop selling them called it a captured snowflake. I think that's a pretty good name.

This ornament wasn't made by me, but it's one of the reasons that I make ornaments...because of the memories that go along with them. Pretty much every ornament on my tree has a memory or story behind it. Whether that story is that someone made it, someone bought it for me or that I got it for 75 cents when it was 90% off at Cracker Barrel after Christmas, there's a story that makes each ornament special. So, this one is my husband, Greg when he was probably about 4-5 years old. The red bobbles are coiled pipe cleaners. It's old and no where near up to my crafting standards, but it's one of the sweetest ornaments on my tree. For many years it hung on Greg's family tree. And it still does. We are his family now. Hold the phone! Does that mean that one day my daughter-in-laws are going to want all the picture ornaments of my kids? Not sure I'm prepared to think about that type of thing quite yet!

Merry Christmas Everyone! This year, make an ornament for someone you love!