2009 Christmas card front
I can only hope everyone had as nice a Christmas as we had here at Happy Acres. It wasn’t a White Christmas, but that’s not a bad thing. We had a monster snow for Christmas in 2004, and that was enough to last me for a long time to come!
As is our custom, this morning we unveiled the new homemade ornaments for 2009. They turned out to be a His, Hers and Ours type effort. I had several ideas floating around in my head, but I was having a hard time deciding how to go forward with one of them. So, my wife and I put our heads together and came up with a joint effort (Ours).
I had bought several patera jewelry findings on Ebay, intending to turn one of them into a photo ornament. The photo itself is one of three we used in our Christmas cards this year (top photo), and was taken after the big ice storm in January. The freezing rain and sleet had turned the bluebird house into an Ice Palace. Amazingly, we chose this photo to be on the card just a couple of weeks before our first bluebird sighting here. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences, so I think it is only fitting we went ahead and finished this ornament with the bluebird house photo. And, we enjoyed working together so much, we decided we should do it more often!
patera jewelry birdhouse ornament
Unbeknown to me, my wife was also making an ornament for the tree this year (Hers). She made this ornament mainly out of recycled materials. She printed the image on photo paper, then attached it to materials she found in her scrap bin.
photo ornament from recycled material
The photo was kindly taken by the waiter during our anniversary dinner earlier this year. This image of the back of the ornament shows some of the construction details – the photo glued onto silver colored paper attached to red wrapping paper which was glued on card stock. She used her Wizard die cut machine with Spellbinder dies to cut the ornament.
back of ornament
My creation (His) started as a paper mache star I bought that was stuck on a wooden stick. I covered it in two different kinds of metal leaf material – one side came from wildly variegated sheets, and the other came from metallic flakes of different colors. It was glued on the star with Mod Podge. The stick made a convenient handle until the very end, when I removed it, then plugged the hole and covered it with metal leaf.
side with variegated metal leaf
After all the metal leaf dried, I finished it off with a thin coat of matte finish Mod Podge. Then I poked a hole in one point of the star, and glued on some elastic metallic thread for a hanger.
side with metal leaf flakes
So that’s the story of the 2009 Christmas ornaments here at Happy Acres. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
I love handmade ornaments! I just shared a box full of them that my Mother had made for my children when they were young. My daughter acted like I had given her a treasure! I think they are treasures, but it really made me feel good to know the kids feel the same way. Next year, they will be in the boxes again, wanting more ornaments. That is fine with me.
Happy New Year!
I can tell your ornaments are full of meaning and love. The bluebird ornament is very nice, and I’m glad the bird house is a good home to bluebirds. Have a blessed and joyful New Year!