ornamental fun

sweet little handmade straw angel we found at the thrift store the other day for 50 cents!!

it seems sienna has decided we can start to officially prepare for the holiday season. christmas trees began to pop up in neighborhood houses (seriously) and wreaths on downtown light posts nearly as soon as halloween was over this year. every time we would pass some sign of that *distant* time to come, she would proclaim her frustration with the premature nature of this decor. the other day she exclaimed *i really wish mother earth could talk. then she could tell these people that it's NOT time for christmas decorating!*

since we have the week off from school and we have been making lots of plans for what we will be creating for gifts this year, she must finally be in the spirit! the past couple of days she has been wanting to make lots of ornaments.

last christmas, grandma debbie and grandpa charlie brought the kids a box of unpainted wooden ornaments in all sorts of festive shapes. we pulled them out last night and started painting them using our beloved stockmar watercolor paints. we love using the watercolors on the wood because you can see the grain through the colors.

jasper's ornament

showing off her work in progress...love those little toes peeking out!

we have done this sort of project before several times with simple wooden figures purchased from michael's craft store for $1. this dinosaur is loved as much as the expensive wooden figures in their collection!

edited to add: we seal these up with beeswax finish. we have mamakopp's wood creme. there are a few tutorials on the web to make your own, too.

sienna has joined her first swap! she has been watching mom create, send, and receive packages this past year and she is so thrilled to have the opportunity to do one herself. she is making ornaments for crafty crow's kid's ornament swap. the theme is fairy tales so she wanted to make some pretty elaborate felt princesses (where do you think she got that idea from?), which i'm sure she could pull off, but not 5 or 6 of them before the deadline. we compromised and she is using fabric markers (a first) to draw princesses and unicorns then she will back them with felt and stitch around the edges. she started drawing them today.

wet felted acorn she made last week in class.

we also continued our beeswax ornament making today. we got some incredibly adorable new molds from the spunky bake it pretty online shop. if you do not know this shop, you must go check it out! make sure you see these and these. we are lucky enough to live in the same town as amanda and could not wait to pick up our order today to start making these fun shapes!!

seriously, what could be cuter than a beeswax day of the dead skull...with a handlebar mustache, no less?! ;)

i'll be back tomorrow with some exciting ornament news (lots of you know already) and my very first giveaway!! stay tuned......