Each year that a child is born to us, we like to make a little homemade Christmas ornament with their picture, name and the year on it. G's frame is that paint-it-yourself wood, embellished with little wood Christmas pieces; BB's is a mini picture frame with foam snowflake stickers and puffy paint writing. I was on Martha Stewart's website looking for something else when I came upon this project for cookie cutter ornaments: Z's ornament. I got two really cute shapes, a Christmas tree and a gingerbread man, and we just have to decide which is better suited to the picture we want to use. I hope that bottle of puffy paint is still around somewhere.The something else I was looking for: a candle- or (Aladdin's) lamp-shaped ornament idea. I agreed to help make a Jesse tree ornament set – I penned this post with the intention of mentioning the new project, but it seems I forgot –, and being the last one to join, I got stuck with making the candle/lamp. As an aside, I want to tell you what I had in mind for my then-other choice, the sandal. Keeping in mind that I didn't know that there's usually a size limitation on these Jt ornaments, I was going to make an imprint of Z's foot in some medium and fashion it into said sandal, maybe a flip-flop. Wouldn't that have been so cute? Maybe I can still do something of the sort as a new family tradition. Anyway for lack of inspiration, I freehanded a candle template and made it all out of felt; for effect, I glued some sequins on. They're assembling faster than I thought they would – I have to make 28 of them – so I shall happily be right on time for the start of Advent, although come to find out my ornament falls towards the end of the sequence. Now to find a suitable Jesse tree: what do you think of this?
