Ornaments!!!

I had a pretty productive today today…of course, not like “cleaning the house” or “mowing the yard” productive.  Instead, I made two new ornaments for our fabulous new Christmas tree.  Yup—I finally got to upgrade from our little scraggy 5-foot tree, to a beautiful, full, PRE-LIT-WITH-1000+-LIGHTS tree that I got at a thrift store for $100.  SO happy.

Well, when you add 2.5 feet to your tree…you need more ornaments, amirite?  Not that I don’t already add to my ornament collection annually.  Or have a bunch of Eeyore and Marvin the Martian ornaments that I don’t even put up anymore since I switched tree themes.  But..I mean… come on… PINTEREST.

So I started the morning with a cup of coffee, and the fixings for a button ornament:

- styrofoam ornament (48c at WalMart)

- pearl-ended straight pins ($1.97 at WalMart)

- and LOTs of buttons (free, from my mom’s button collection)

Instructions not really necessary on this one—you start with one button, add another… stagger colors & sizes and layer when appropriate to fill in the white spaces.

And then, I wanted to do my own take on the “book pages” ornaments.  I didn’t have any old sheet music, but I do have this random old Catholic Missal from 1966. I’m not 100% sure where it came from—either I picked it up at a thrift store or it came from a box of books at my Nana’s house…either way, it’s been sitting on a shelf in my house, unused, for several years.  So I fugured I might as well put it to good use.

Here’s hoping you can’t go to hell for cutting up a 50 year old liturgy.

 

I pulled a few pages from the Advent, Christmas Vigil & Midnight Mass liturgies, and cut out poignant bits that referenced Christmas.

 

Then I took a blank paper ornament (60c at Hobby Lobby) & used Modge Podge to adhere the paper to the ornament, turning the pieces at different angles and trying to get good coverage (while making sure lines that I really liked didn’t get too covered up).

When it was fully covered, I did one final thin layer of Modge Podge, and sprinkled it with glitter.  Let that dry, and then I took it outside & sprayed it with a clear coat (to help the glitter not fall off).

 

I’ve got a few other blank paper ornaments, so I might make a few more of these. I love the way it turned out!

And then, to wrap it up, I re-vamped this wreath.  Last year, I hung it on our front door, and the neighborhood birds thought the beautiful berries were real—so they pecked it to death.  I’m hoping no birds were harmed permanently.  So this year, I snipped off the sprigs with damaged berries, and then added all the pine cones & some extra greenery & cinnamon sticks. (Oh, and hung it indoors this year, so no birds would be at risk.)