Hand-made Ornaments & Garland

 

I have been busy making ornaments this season.  My latest ones are made from Scrabble tiles.  I drill tiny holes in the top and bottom to do the beading and added a dough ornament at the bottom of the beading.  I made the boys' teachers all one with their last name on them. 

 

I made a photo ornament of each boy using their school picture.  The frames came from the Dollar Tree.  They are not very fancy but I like to see them on the tree.  Do you see my garland?  It's crocheted with gold jingle bells.  I took the yarn to school one day and had my students help me space all the bells in the yarn.  Good thing I asked the 9th graders to help me; I don't think my upperclassmen would have been as willing. 

 You can see another scrabble tile ornament on the right side of this picture.

 

When Christmas is over (or when I have a chance - which ever is first), I plan to write the year on the picture frame.

I'm linking to Heidi's Make Do and Mend since I had all the supplies on hand to make these ornaments.  Of course, I had to have bought them at one point.  So, maybe I should say that I just used my stash!

PS - I have had several questions about my Scrabble tiles.  I ordered a 100 tiles from Amazon.  No Scrabble game was hurt in this process.  I will be looking at thrift stores for some more tiles.  Secondly, I use a vice to hold the scrabble tile while I drill a hole in the end.  I did not want my fingers in the way!

2 more ornaments

I stitched these 2 ornaments this past week while I was under the weather and not feeling good. I finished them this morning and am pleased with how they turned out! This makes #6 and #7 of my cross stitch ornament goal. I have a goal of 12! I might just make it this year!!

This one was designed by my friend, Heidi, at Needle Necessities. You need to check out her free pattern each month on the 15th! While you are there, look around at her creative spirit. You are in for a rare treat!

This was was a freebie from the Lizzie-Kate site! I adore Lizzie Kate patterns. I think they are fun to stitch and whimsical at the same time. I love small patterns that I can complete in a few hours.

Button ornament

I finally finished a very simple ornament that has taken me days to complete because I kept redoing it. I think I am finally satisfied. I took vintage buttons (from my mother's button collection) and hot glued them onto a styrofoam ball. Then I "trimmed" it in baby rickrack and white pins. I think it will very pretty on the tree with the light reflecting off of the buttons.

Popsicle ornament

It's February 25th - 10 months from today is Christmas!! It's never too early to start on 2008 Christmas ornaments! This was a very easy ornament and took just a few minutes to make. It is made from buttons, popsicle sticks and a little ribbon.


Supplies:
4 popsicle sticks
hot glue
buttons (or gems)
ribbon

Instructions: Take 2 popsicle sticks and form an x and glue where the two sticks connect. Take other 2 and form a + and glue where two sticks connect. Now take the x and the + and place on top of each other and glue where they connect. Take buttons or gems, poms poms whatever you like and glue to popsicle sticks. If you wanted to you can paint the popsicle sticks before you begin. Take ribbon and glue a hoop and viola!, you have a cute ornament for the tree.
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I think this would have been cuter if all the buttons would have matched. However, in my quest to be frugal, I decided to make do with what I had. Stay tuned for more popsicle ornaments since I have a box of 1000 popsicle sticks that I found!

1st Christmas Ornament Finished

Hooray for me! I finished my very first cross stitch 2008 Christmas ornament! I had originally thought I would make enough of these for my annual swap but have decided that I did not want to make 12 of these because of the tree branches! LOL! The buttons are from my mother's button stash and are all old. So, this ornament is extra special to me. I have a goal of making at least 1 ornament per month during 2008.