A Christmas Tradition

Over the past few years, I have begun my own little Christmas tradition...I began painting Christmas ornaments and attached them to my families' presents. Each year, I have had an extra, so my Christmas tree benefits. Not only does it give me something special to give my family members, but it gives me a "creative outlet".

2005

2006

2007...Last year I decided they would also serve as the tags for the presents.

The day after Thanksgiving, I found some wooden ornaments at Micheal's. I decided to combine the two idea...an ornament and a tag.

Apparently, from the first picture to the next one of the camera...well, I was very busy! I painted each of the ornaments. My goal was to keep it simple...two colors maximum. I actually also bough two other cutouts that I did not use. One was a present with a box and the other was a bell. They didn't turn out the way I had envisioned them. It took a couple of coats of paint, but I didn't worry to much about making things perfect. Once I was satisfied with the colors, I took some sand paper and "aged" the ornaments. I really worked on the edges so the brown wood would show through.

I was really pleased with the way they all turned out, but my favorite is the candy cane. Because it is so thin, it had to be either for my mom or my dad. There is no way I cold have squeezed "Madeline" in there!

I chose a very basic paper. Originally I had wanted a plaid, but I found this simple blue paper with some holly, birds, and snowflakes at Wal-Mart. My favorite part is that printed on the paper is "We are filled with joy. Psalm 126:3" I kept the bow very simple as well by using brown raffia.

Now, if I would only finish my Christmas shopping, then I could get all these tags attached and hit the UPS store!