homemade holidays: this year's ornaments

Every year, I try to make a few new ornaments for our Christmas tree.  This year, I got on kind of an ornament making-spree, making several for my family and many ornament gifts.

In late November, the kids and I were making salt dough ornaments, and I cut out some of these cute little owls.  

All you need for the owl body is a large and small circle cookie cutter - use the large circle for the body, and the small cutter to take a scallop off the top for the ears, and to make impressions for the wings (don't cut all the way through).  For the polka dot chest, I used a capri sun drink straw, the flower eyes were a little fondant cutter, and the beak was made with just the tip of a butter knife.  Slap on a little paint and a lot of glitter, and you have a fun little ornament.

For an ornament exchange at church, I made a few of these book page ornaments.  I'm not great at photographing glitter, but it is a sparkly little number ... though not quite as pretty as the inspiration ornaments I was trying to emulate (these gorgeous balls made with vintage papers posted at Flea Market Style blog).

Keeping a kid-friendly tree in mind, I bought clear plastic ornaments from Michael's, decoupaged them with strips of scripted scrapbook paper, and topped with lots of Martha Stewart glitter.  Looking back at the inspiration ornament, maybe I should glitter the silver clip, too!  I hung them with pretty brown velvet ribbon.

I used a really lovely free printable from That's Happy blog to make many sets of chickadee and cardinal bird ornaments.

After printing the birds onto watercolor paper (which is sturdy and has a nice texture), I mod podged them onto sheets of cork board to give them a little extra support.  Then I glittered all the white sections.  These were really simple to make, and probably my favorite ornaments this year.

Lastly, I made a set of peg people doll ornaments for my husband's ornament exchange at work.  This was 100% Jared's idea.  He likes the peg people I made last Christmas, and wanted to make some of a few of the partners at his law firm.  It was fun to work on a project with him, because he typically does not get involved with the craft stuff around here.

After painting the peg people, I simply drilled a small hole in the top of their heads (sorry, gentlemen!) and added a screw eye for hanging.  They each have a little tag attached with the person's initials.

These guys were a hit at the office, and now there is talk about making a peg ornament for each lawyer and staff member.  Hmm, I better get started for next year!

Well, that's it - my homemade ornaments for 2012.  Have you made ornaments this year?  Are you still working on Christmas presents?  I still have a long list of gifts to make, so it's going to be a busy week!