Christmas Ornaments
Best laid plans, right? My intention was to be ahead of the game with our crafts this holiday season. Halloween and Thanksgiving were right on time so two out of three ain't bad! I'm a little late with this one because I've been caught up in the whirlwind of Black Friday shopping which apparently lasts for two weeks now. I've come up for air and tackled our Christmas craft. A fun one for the whole family and a great way to do something with those fresh cut tree clippings. Every year I've held on to them and felt craft guilt as they sat on the corner of my desk waiting for creativity to strike, only to be thrown away at the end of the season. This year we're done procrastinating!
Our tree went up a week later than usual this year which is also why I'm posting a little later than promised. In our house, my husband gives the tree a fresh cut himself. If you're not as handy, you can have the tree lot do the cutting for you (most of them offer it). We have three kids so he made 3 cuts for me so they each had one to decorate. As usual, I got this idea from Pinterest and absolutely loved how simple it is. I don't know about you, but I oftentimes feel overwhelmed at this time of year with everything that needs to be done on top of all of the crafting ideas I want to try. I embraced the simplicity of this one.
I wanted to keep the look of the wood so when the kids and I painted the black on the tree cutting I had them leave a wood border. I thought I had my chalkboard paint but I used it all on a previous craft. Improvisation was in order as I was not making a trip to the store. This craft was supposed to be simple and a trip to the store was not in my plan. I had some black acrylic craft paint and figured it would work just as well. Luckily it did. The one thing I would have done differently if I did this craft again was to sand the flat side of the wood better before painting. I left it rough which made it harder to draw on. It worked fine and the kids didn't complain so they're still going on the tree!
I also had craft paint and white, red and gold chalkboard pens. I put everything out and let the kids go to town. You can see in the pictures how the paint pens applied a little wonky because I didn't sand the wood. Normally my perfectionist side would have re-done this but in this case "simple" was the code word. I drilled some holes in the tops and attached holiday ribbon to hang them from the tree but you can use them however your creativity dictates.
Happy Holidays!!
