The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Twelve

The last day. I feel more relaxed already.

Everyone needs a Christmas tree on their Christmas tree right? This one is so easy you don't even need to use the pattern she includes. I'm sorry about the bad picture, it's overcast today so the lighting stinks. Hope you have all enjoyed the ornaments and that you make some and post your picture or link to your blog in the comments so I can see them.

Off to SeaWorld. Have a fabulous Saturday!

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Eleven

If you all haven't checked out the Allsorts blog yet you really should. She has many free tutorials and patterns and her posts are fresh and interesting. In case you're a bit slow on the draw, today's ornament is found on the Allsorts blog. I made six of these because they are so cute and simple.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Ten

I believe I just made the classiest ornament yet. Surprisingly it's very, very easy and it doesn't take a whole lot of time. I like this pine cone with brown and off-white ribbon. I don't think it would be quite as neat with plain brown ribbon. I wasn't able to find the sequin pins at JoAnn, but I did find applique pins and they worked perfectly.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Nine

Who knew that buttons could be so much fun. I think I needed a slightly larger range in size to make my snowman and reindeer turn out better but still, they're pretty darn cute. I may have hit an ornament craftiness wall because the best I could come up with for coal eyes and a carrot nose was permanent markers.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Eight

Part of the reason I like this one so much is because it involves my sewing machine and my rotary cutter and mats. Don't get me wrong, I like to scrapbook and I like all my cool paper, but I am truly a seamstress at heart. Luckily Emily over at Ravenhill put up this timely tutorial for some of the prettiest and neatest ornaments I found in my search for ornaments. I quickly ran to my closet and was nearly heart broken when I found I'd thrown away my already felted sweater. But, I found two others that were joyously sacrificed to the cause. Something else I really like about this ornament is that it inspires me to be imaginative: felted heart ornaments? How about felted bags, felted hat pins, felted cards...what else can I make with a used, felted wool sweater? You know what? I'm sure that Kumiko Sudo has projects in her books calling for quality felt. Now I have some (you can't buy it at JoAnn.) Anyway, this isn't really one for the kids. Maybe in two years Ella will be able to do this rationally and not waste the felt. And I think the next one I make will be smaller and hand stitched. And I'd put bells on it. I have to buy some though because the girls like to toss them all over the house and I'm really not sure where the two bags of bells I had are. I'm sure under couches, beds, behind dressers and in other various places I'm in no mood to look. Now, run to your closet and get a sweater. I expect to see some posts about ornaments here!

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Seven

Another Paper Pleasing Idea. I like this one a lot. It's easy and pretty. I didn't have a proper scoring device so I just used my paper cutter and instead of cutting it used the end of a paint brush to score it. You have to be sure to score at exactly 1" increments or they turn out looking a bit funny like mine did. I also used hot glue since I couldn't get the double-sided tape to stick properly.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Six

Julie over at Paper Pleasing Ideas has this fantastic paper ornament. I wasn't too excited about it until I actually made one. With the right paper these are just beautiful, the only thing I don't like about them is that they are so fragile. I don't know how I'm going to store them for next year. Other than that, they are very easy and we added beads to ours to spice them up a bit. Make sure to check out the tutorial because my picture doesn't do it justice.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Five

Today's ornament is brought to you by the letter "L", for lamb. Or maybe the letter "S", for sheep. Or even better still, the letter "M" for messy. Ella put a funny little tail on hers. The only thing I don't really like about this project is that it doesn't give you a template for the face so we had to come up with our own.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Four

Everyone needs candy canes on their Christmas tree. How about permanent ones that's you don't have to feel obligated to eat, even though you hate them but feel guilty about throwing them away? These are so cute, but I have to say that I honestly couldn't figure them out. So, we improvised. I recommend hot glue and also I thought they looked better with a crocheted (just a chain stitch) length of yarn. Ella really liked this one. She's got the hang of the hot glue gun and she made a bunch of these by herself. I also recommend cutting the pipe cleaners in half, because they look cuter shorter. On this one you can see I doubled up the end because it looked kind of dumb so long. Anyway, enjoy!

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Three

Everyone knows Martha Stewart is a veritable wellspring of great crafty ideas. That's why several of the ornaments we're making come from her website. Today's is my favorite so far. When I was a little girl my favorite Christmas carol was the Little Drummer Boy. Here are some cute drums in honor of that carol. We used the little paper boxes you can find at JoAnn for one dollar. Cute, cheap. Need I say more. This is Rachel's. She picked out the ribbon, I glued.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day Two

Today's ornament is courtesy of Maria Bell who does not work with fabric, but rather paper. Her tutorial for these glittery ball ornaments is easy to understand and the finished product is really beautiful. Don't judge her ornaments by our finished product. I worked with what we had in the house so they didn't turn out exactly like hers, but we still had a lot of fun. The only thing is that I'm sure I'll be picking glitter out of food, hair and carpeting for the next month at least.

The Twelve Days of Ornaments - Day One

I've been making ornaments with the kids and in doing so I realized there is a whole world of fun ornaments to make and you don't have to spend a whole lot of money on cheap plastic meaningless things. Just think of the fond memories you'll have in twenty years as you decorate your tree with your...grandkids? Here's my first ornament find: Randi over at Me and My Girl has found a tutorial for a button wreath. Very easy and very cute. We used floral wire. Here's what my girls came up with.