Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’

Goofy & Fun Decorated Ornaments

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

decorated-ornamentsWe’ve been transforming our plain Christmas ball ornaments into unique decorated ornaments that are fun to look at. Some turned out really goofy! I took out my craft supplies, and the kids started making faces with google eyes and beards. I’ve never seen this before, and it looked so funny that my husband had a good laugh. My daughter wanted to wrap a ball in a glittery cloth that had ripped off one of her tutus. We tied a ribbon onto the top of it, and it looked great. Next, my daughter wanted to put fake jewels all over a ball. I put dots of hot glue, and she glued each jewel down. My husband said it looked like a disco ball.

My goofy son hot glued a large eyeball to one ornament. It looked funny, like someone was looking at you, perhaps an alien with one eye. We also put swirls of white school glue on some red balls, and shook some gold glitter on them, and they looked quite good. Someone even made a happy face out of glue, shook sprinkles on it, and hung it to dry on the tree. We loved our decorated ornaments that reflected our children’s personalities!

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Embossed Christmas Ornaments

Monday, December 20th, 2010

embossed-Christmas-ornamentsembossed-Christmas-ornaments2Ever since I saw a random YouTube video about embossing, I became intrigued with the idea. I love doing crafts with earthy materials like leather, wood, or metal. I don’t particularly like crafts made out of paper (because they look like trash to me), although I sometimes do those with my kids because they love it so much. So when I ordered a roll of copper sheeting, I was excited to get started. Well, my first attempt at embossing was a failure. It just didn’t look right. I was expecting it to be spectacular, and my expectations were way off base. It’s just thin metal with grooves in it, after all.

embossed-Christmas-ornaments4embossed-Christmas-ornaments3Well, this time I tried making embossed Christmas ornaments. I went to a local craft supply store and got a box of 6 metal sheets. (The box is called “Metal Art,” and it cost me $12.99. It had a picture of metal sheets with a pattern of holes in them, like a design. It included a mallet that I never used.) Anyway, I realized that in my Play Doh supplies, I had some cheap plastic sculpting tools. So I grabbed one of those to make the grooves this time, instead of a ballpoint pen. The embossing sheets were thinner, so it was easier to make the grooves. I think the pen actually gave me more controembossed-Christmas-ornaments5l over the drawing than the sculpting tool did, so I recommend the pen after all. Except that you need the sculpting tool to puff out the lines on the other side, by going over the lines (beside the lines) to accentuate the lines. Just look at the YouTube video or my previous blog entry about embossing to give instructions on how to do it. Then we cut out the design and pierced a hole through it with an ornament hanger. It looked okay on the tree, I guess.

The silver-colored sheeting looks particularly bad, because it looks like you just put up some crumpled foil on the tree. So do I recommend this? Sort of. It was not until I did the star ornament that I truly thought it looked good, and even though I didn’t glembossed-Christmas-ornaments6ue it to velvet cardboard, that would have looked a lot better, because it would have given the ornament more substance. So, yes, you can make a professional, great-looking ornament if you have some black velvet cardboard to glue it to. I didn’t have the money to buy everything in the YouTube video, so I tried to made do with what I had.

Then it occurred to me that the sheet was thin enough for a bookmark. So my children made bookmarks with it. That was fun and actually looked good. So thumbs up for bookmarks with embossed metal! I wonder what else I can make with it?

Christmas Tea Party

Saturday, December 18th, 2010

Christmas-tea-partyEvery December, a friend of mine throws a Christmas tea party for homeschool mothers at her house. We all bring a plate of goodies to share. Thankfully, I’d made my banana bread over a week ago and frozen it, so all I had to do was take it out of the freezer the night before, and cut it right before leaving. Other people brought French bread and dip (which was so totally delicious, Samantha!), crackers and cheese, veggies and dip, a yummy circle sandwich thing that’s like a big croissant, salad, muffins, orange slices, and cookies, cookies, and more cookies.

A fire was in the fireplace, and a bazillion stockings were hung by the chimney with care. Oh, yes, my darling friend Phillis has 9 children; hence the bazillion stockings. The room had tables with lacy tablecloths and fine china. And what’s a tea party without tea?

I’ll never knowChristmas-tea-party2 why people in this country ask, “How are you?” as a greeting. Do they really want to know that I’ve been sobbing? Could they see my puffy eyes and guess? Or did I do a good job hiding the redness with brown-black mascara?

If I say, “Fine, thank you,” that would be a lie. If I say, “Horrible; how are you?” and smile sweetly at the stunned woman who I can’t possibly tell my troubles to without slandering people, the conversation will turn awkward. And that’s exactly what happened because I refuse to lie. And it’s their fault they asked, besides. So there. Awkwardness was created by them, not me, since they asked me such a personal question.

The food was delicious, as I sChristmas-tea-party3aid, and the homeschool mothers were nice. The awkwardness went away and didn’t matter. We talked about Christmas traditions and interesting stocking stuffers. I was grateful Phillis didn’t call on me, because whenever you’re punched in the stomach by life, you have no air left, and it’s hard to make conversation. (Now writing, on the other hand, is different. It is actually cathartic for me to be writing this. I can re-live the evening and savor it one more time, taking my mind off other things.)

Then came the best part, the part that always makes me laugh. Yes, I laughed. Isn’t that cool? We had an ornament or decoration exchange, and each person gets a number. The first person picks a wrapped present and opens it. The second person can steal the first present or look behind door number 2, I mean, choose a different gift. Things get rowdy right around the middle of the gift exchange, because people steal more than thChristmas-tea-party4ey take a new gift. A set of train tins caused a lot of rukkus, since someone wanted it for her 2-year-old boy, and her close friend stole it right from under her nose. “How could you steal that from a 2-year-old boy!” she yelled with a smile on her face. “What are you going to do with it; put it on the top of the cabinets with your other tins in your kitchen?”

“Yes,” the other woman said smiling, “and your 2-year-old can play with it when he comes over.” We all had a good laugh. One poor woman had her ornaments stolen six times, I think. It was hilarious. It was really a lovely evening. Thank you, ladies.