Christmas

Christmas time!

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Easy Paper or Felt Ornaments

Some fun and easy ornaments to make use nothing more than paper, felt, glue, and any little embellishments you might have in your craft scraps (or could find in dollar stores), such as sequins, lace, old books, and paper doilies. 

When doing a homeschooling crafting session with a group of kids, I found an old paperback of A Christmas Carol to cut words and quotes from, and other embellishments, and got some different designs of scrapbook paper and some colored felt, and I also made a few templates (which comes in handy for the very young kiddos).  I kept the shapes simple like bells, hearts, or birds.  It was a lot of fun seeing how different everyone's turned out, and you can create dozens in a short time.  They are great to tuck into Christmas cards or put on top of a tray of Christmas cookies.  And they are so light-weight, which is great for hanging on those limp and flimsy tree branches that we all seem to have a few on our Christmas tree every year.  I should have take more pictures, but here are a few to give you an idea ~

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I love decorating for all the seasons and holidays, including tucking little decorations all around the house.  Here is something on my kitchen window sill, so even if I am just doing the dishes, I feel a little Christmas joy.

candy cane vase I put together using a 99cent vase I already had  ~ and then there is also a small metal relief of Mary, baby Jesus, and Joseph

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How do you display your Christmas cards?

 I love sending out Christmas cards, and it's fun receiving them in the mail from family and friends too.  It's always nice to grab your mail throughout December and see a happily familiar name in the return address on a red or green envelope, instead of just bills and junk mail.  And the cards are often so beautiful, you want to use them in with your Christmas decorating, and to be thinking of all your loved ones whose names are signed inside those cards.  I have put mine up around the house in different ways, different years.  Sometimes I taped them on the inside door jam in between the kitchen and living room.  Other times I've set them around here or there, on top of the china cabinet, tv, and scattered around the house.  Here are a few other ways I've displayed them to add Christmas cheer around the house.....

...tucked into the living room desk ~

~ and laid out on top of the dry sink, along with other decorations...

...and excess ones get scattered here or there, on the fridge, on a shelf, etc....

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Some more inexpensive Christmas ornaments to make with your kids....get some pom-poms, googly eyes, dimensional Christmas stickers, and have some fun.  I cut a base shape out of poster board and we glued the pom-poms on to that.  I used a needle to make a hole at the top of the poster board to thread some embroidery floss through to be able to hang them, or just thread the string through the top of the pom poms (deep enough down so it doesn't come out).  Easy and fun and inexpensive. Most of the stuff, if not all, is often found at dollar stores.  I do prefer tacky glue for this, and so that I did purchase at a craft store (but used a 40% off coupon).   I had a bag of red, green, and white pom-poms and a bag with black, white, brown, and tan pom-poms.  We made things like panda bears, polar bears, black bears, and cats. Along with snowmen (used an orange marker on a toothpick to make the nose), and wreaths.  Kids took them home before I got the camera out, and my daughter and I gave a few away, but I did get pics of a few of them...