Handcrafted Ornaments and Such

I have a new blogging friend who has been showing some of her wonderful homemade Christmas decorations.  I myself have often enjoyed doing something creative at Christmas.  I don't always feel the creative urge each year but certainly have lately.   Ever since Danielle,  showed one of her latest creations here, I have been inspired to share a few of mine as well.  So, for Inspiration Friday I thought I would show you a few of my favorite older made Christmas ornaments as well as my latest creations.

This is one of my oldest creations.  In fact it's so old it has lost all it's smell.  I really need to make some new more updated versions of these.  I hot glued a few small cinnamon sticks together, hot glued on some decorative dried flower potpourri, a decorative ribbon and you have a beautiful scented ornament. 

Speaking of scented ornaments, for an easy creation I just added scented potpourri in these clear balls.  How easy is that?  They have long lost their scent too, but a few drops of scented oil and they are good to go a few more years, cause really I have no patience to try and shake all that potpourri back out.

 

This is not really a handmade ornament per say either, but I love updating old ornaments with glitter.  Just add glue in any design and shake the glitter on over a bowl, then hang to dry.  This is such an easy fix to old inherited glass balls that are loosing their color.  After the glitter dries a bit then coat the whole ornament with modge podge.

Here's a few balls I covered entirely with glitter, then modge podged.  Beautiful aren't they!  Stay tuned to see where I use these, every year.

Or you could take a bag of sequins and go to town like I did on these red balls.  This requires a lot of patience.  I just glued them on then coated the whole thing with modge podge.  

These candy ornaments I made using glitter glue paint on styrofoam then wrapped in shrink wrap ( I did not heat the shrink wrap though) and tied on each end with decorative ribbon.

Now back to the tree to show you more of my all time favorites.

I made lots of these candy canes by making my own Christmas craft clay.

This is what I made with the left over clay I had.  I have two of these little Santa hats.

For the candy canes I just rolled out the dough to make long strips like you did in kindergarten to make snakes.  I know you remember how to do that!  I used red food coloring for one batch then left the other natural.  After rolling out two snakes, then twist them together and shape into a candy can and let them dry on wax paper.  BE sure to coat with poly after they are done!  I used modge podge, not recommended for the long run, but I was being cheap at the time. 

Here's the recipe for Christmas Craft Clay

2 cups flour

2 cups salt

2 cups water

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons cooking oil

liquid or paste food coloring

1. In a large saucepan mix together two cups flour, two cups salt, two cups water, two tablespoons cream of tartar and two tablespoons cooking oil.

2. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly for one or two minutes.  The mixture will start to clump immediately.  Keep stirring and remove from the heat when it reaches a dough-like consistency.  If it gets too dry, add some more water and/or a drop of oil.

3. Let the mixture cool until it can be handled.  Knead it well until it's smooth (add more water if necessary or reheat if it's too sticky)

4. Divide dough into separate plastic bags.  Add food coloring and knead it well inside the bag to get an even color.

5. Use the dough and cookie cutter to make homemade ornaments, figurines, door plaques, candle holders, kitchen magnets, etc.  After cutting and making a hole with a skewer or pencil tip, let the pieces dry completely with polyurethane to protect.

( Be sure to store extra dough in airtight container or it will dry out.)

Lately my creative ornaments have been more on the painted side.

Here's a few I had left over from last year!

I made several of these last year.  I had both Carolina and Clemson balls that I made.  I guess you can tell I have more Carolina friends then Clemson friends because this is all I have left.  I actually ran out of the Carolina ones.  All of these got a decorative bow too, not pictured here!

I also made a few of these to give away too!  Here's the one I kept for our tree! 

This one I painted right before Thanksgiving this year.  I am not done with this ornament yet.  It still needs a few more things to pretty it up a bit more.  Maybe some moss inside the ornament, and  a nice pretty bow.  What do you think?

It is always so enjoyable to unpack ornaments you have created and brings back such great memories.  I hope this gives you a few ideas, or inspires you to create your own ornaments too.

Thanks for visiting today!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Mary