Da Ordaments

The Monday before Thanksgiving, Bub fell in love with an cute little Christmas tree at Target. Three feet tall. Pre-lit. On sale.

I warmed to the idea of the lil tree as we finished our Targeting. "You and Little Bit can put it in your room," I told Bub. And then, "We'll make all our own ornaments for it!"

My Bub, lover of crafts, lit up. We spent some time that afternoon searching for kid-friendly ornament projects online. Actually, we only spent about ten minutes as I was quickly overwhelmed by thoughts of glue guns, glitter, spray paint, and other ordament fixings.

Yes, I know it's "ornament," but my kids prefer to say ordament so ordament it is.

Bub was distracted from the ordament crafting plan by an urgent desire to visit "his website."

After Thanksgiving, we decorated our big tree and set up the little one in the boys' room. Every time I thought about making ordaments for it, I just felt kind of tired. "Yep," I'd tell Bub, "we're going to make some ordaments soon."

And here's what we did without a glue gun, glitter, paint, clothes pins, or small pieces of felt. You can do it too. If you want.

First we chose a few of our favorite Christmas books . . . like this one.

Then I got out my beloved full sheet labels (awesome for all kinds of crafty and useful purposes, but paper and glue can work for this project too).

We tried to choose a page in each book that featured as many cute and appropriately-sized characters and scenes as possible. Then we used our all-in-one printer/copier/scanner to copy the pages we chose.

Then, we cut out characters and scenes from the full-sheet labels. I say "we," but I did it because I didn't trust anyone else to do this delicate work. Then we pulled the backing off the cut-outs and stuck them on the glossy side of a piece of a piece of poster board. (Again, you could glue your pretty pictures to the poster board).

Then the boys took turns picking pictures so that they each had their "own ordaments."

Then we cut the poster board around the pictures. I let Bub cut out his all by himself because I am breezy and laid back like that.

Next came the part of the project where one's creativity can "run wild" as the boys decorate the back of the ornaments with crayons in carefully selected holiday colors. Note Little Bit's concentration on the task at hand. Pretty remarkable for him, I have to say.

No photos of the next steps, but they are as follows: Make slight crease in top of each picture and cut small slit. Slide cheap silver ornament hanger through slit. Use wire-edged ribbons saved from last year's packages and have mommy tie it around the ornament hanger. Write names of boys and the year on each ornament.

Make sure you have a quality-control supervisor.

Rush upstairs and start hanging the ornaments on your cute little tree.

Like this one of Little Critter (yes, I know, I need a new camera. Please tell Santa.)

Reverse side of the Little Critter ornament. (Remember what I said about telling Santa I need a new camera. Thanks!)

Don't feel like hanging ornaments? Live up to your sweatshirt by jumping on a toddler bed while holding a toy stroller.

Wow, look what my brothers made!

Bub for sure has the ordament-making bug now. I have to say I'm happy to oblige. Maybe we'll print some favorite photos on the labels and turn them into tree flair. He's already mentioned that he wants a Tom and Jerry ornament. The boys could also draw their own pictures or color in some clip-art or coloring page images. If nothing else, we'll have a record of what the kids were interested in in 2010. And, so as not to leave Sweet P out, maybe we can take photos of her and of some of her favorite toys and habits (exersaucing, for example). Perhaps a photo of JJ, our elf on the shelf. Maybe we'll do it again next year and the year after and have a cute little tradition on our hands. We shall see.

The point is we're having fun and these ordaments are easy and relatively low mess, as projects go.

Speaking of projects, did you read the Arthur (featured above) book when you were little . . . the one where Arthur accidentally uses salt instead of sugar in his cut-out cookies. The cookies are way too hard to eat (and probably would taste like crap), but the day is saved when they realize the cookies can be used as ornaments. The book, which we don't have, includes a recipe for salt-dough ornaments. Anybody tried making those? I'm thinking that's one I should wait on for a few years . . .

Any holiday crafting in your corner of the world?