Day 1 Kick Off! 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments

Welcome to the wRIte iT DOwN
12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments!

Be sure to check back here each day! We will have 12 different amazing crafty bloggers over the next 12 days showing off their handmade oraments along with the tutorials to make them!

Kicking off our ornament party is

Dani @ The Craft Rookie!

This very sweet lady has been my brainstorming buddy for this party. She is also the designer of my blog button. Thank for everything Dani! I am so excited you are a part of this!
So here she is, these ornaments are so cute and creative, hope you enjoy!

Happy December ~ it's finally here!

Hello Fellow Crafters! I am SO excited to be posting on Day One of Kristin's 12 Days of Handmade Christmas Ornaments!!! (And I want to publicly apologize to Kristin for giving her a heart attack by not sending her this post until what is probably midnight (or later) her time.) SO SORRY KRISTIN!!!! The day got away from me....

First of all, let me introduce myself really quickly. My name is Dani--aka The Craft Rookie. I've been blogging about my crafting endeavors for about 9 months now...and I'm loving it. :) I love to sew, (attempt to) cook, use my staple gun, and my current motto is: "When in doubt, Mod Podge." :) If you have a few minutes (after checking out Kristin's terrific blog, of course!) you should stop by my blog and take a look around. There's something for everyone, I think! :)

Well, onto....

If you follow my blog, you may have seen this post from late September. I've made a few additions to the post, along with a picture of our tree for this year, so keep reading!!! :)

Last year we had a little mini-tree like this:

Because we didn't have room in our small apartment for a big one.

But this year we have more room, so we decided to get a full-size tree. The only problem? We only had little mini-ornaments...and I had a feeling they'd look pretty wierd on a big one. :) So it was time to start making ornaments for our full-size tree.

Since we don't have a lot of storage space (or a lot of money) we didn't want to invest in the bulbs that take up so much room to store (and cost a lot.) So I went to Hobby Lobby and found these great wooden Christmas shapes. They were 4/1.00! I can handle that. :)

Then I bought some clearance patterned paper (I think they were trying to get rid of the leftover stuff from last year...but heck, it's all red and green, so it works for me. ;)

I also bought some red and green ribbon to help decorate them.

First, I cut out a little bit of paper big enough to cover the first shape.

Then I put some mod-podge on the shape, layed the paper on it, and smoothed out the bubbles. (For more detailed instructions on mod-podging, click HERE.)

After the mod-podge under the paper has dried, put a layer of mod-podge over the top of it to give it a shiny, glossy, hard cover. Let it dry, then coat it a couple more times until it looks how you want it to.

After the mod-podge had dried everywhere, I took a foam brush, and sponged the edges of the shapes with some silver toll paint. I let that dry, and then added embellishments like buttons, ribbons, etc. to each shape.

Next I sprayed a layer of glitter over all of them. :) It looks cool when the lights on the tree catch the glitter and make the ornaments look sparkly.

Tu-duh!

Candy Cane

Bulb

Tree

Stocking

Present

Reindeer

Gingerbread Man

These would also make great tags for larger presents. :) Oh, and in case you were wondering, I drilled a little hole in the top of each of these and put a hook through them so they can hang on the tree. :)

Here they are on our oh-so-large tree (It's about 7.5 feet tall--I swear it didn't look that big in the tree lot! :))

I also borrowed some extra traditional bulbs from my parents which helped fill the tree out a bit....

So how do you think they turned out? I think they turned out pretty cute, and they give the tree an old-fashioned look, which I love. :)

I can't wait to see what handmade ornaments people are going to show off over the next couple of weeks! Isn't this such a great idea? Kristin is one smart chickie! Thanks for letting me stop by your blog, Kristin...and once again, sorry for the mini-heart-attack!! I hope we are still cyber-friends!

Happy Holidays to all my wonderful blogging friends!