My Christmas-is-coming weekend plus 2 more easy ornaments to make
This past Friday, just as we’ve done for the last three years, we headed up to a salmon-safe, no spray tree farm north of where we live, picked out our tree and sawed that baby down! We got the 9′ Fraser Fir for only $30 because it was “in the way” of little guys growing in its shadow. We were happy to take home one that had been overlooked by others for some spaces that I knew we could fill with ornaments.
On Saturday, the family came over and we had lunch, then everyone joined in the decorating topped off by singing a few carols.
To round off my Christmas-is-coming weekend, I made two more ornaments to join the ones I created a few weeks ago for the grandkids.
As always, I wanted to use what I had, and frankly, that’s a lot easier when I’m making these for our grandgirls than for our grandson.
I’m not sure he’s going to be crazy about the snowman I made for him, but probably more so than he’d be about almost anything else I could come up with.
In any case, the snowman idea came to me when I opened a drawer and found a bag of white balls someone had given me years ago. I have no idea what they are supposed to be, but they are hard on the outside, and filled with cotton inside.
Just perfect for the ornament.
I had no plan in mind (no surprise there), and when I made the hole in the top ball for the wire that feeds through all three balls and holds them together, for some reason, a huge chunk of the top ball came off! I knew I was going to have to cover it, but making a hat seemed way too complicated. I finally came up with the idea of earmuffs which worked perfectly. Don’t you just love those happy accidents? The eyes are two black fasteners. Mouth dots are made with glitter glue. The nose is paper, the scarf a ribbon remnant. I glued on buttons and added the silver snowflakes to give it a little sparkle.
Next, I spied a cardboard core that had held packaging tape and decided it would be perfect for an ornament.
I covered it inside and out with decorative tape, glued on snowflakes and added bling with green glitter along the edge and sequins in the center of the snowflakes. Then I punched out two birds from glitter cardstock and glued a piece of thread between them, glued them together and did the same with two silver snowflakes. (I couldn’t get the snowflakes to face forward for the picture!) I threaded a wire through two holes drilled in the top, added a ribbon and there you have it, another ordinary object turned into an ornament.
I’m not finished yet, so watch for more ideas and please share your own!
Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.
