Christmas is Coming: Day 21

Well, December 21st is drawing to a close, and since the world hasn't ended yet (guess the Mayans got that one a bit wrong...) it seems like a good time to make another countdown to Christmas post.  One of the things we do every years is let the kids each choose a new ornament to put on our Christmas tree.  It is a lot of fun to see what they pick each year - since they never pick anything close to what I am expecting.  This year we didn't even make it to the ornament aisle.  One of the kids - Ian, I think - noticed some huge cardboard ornaments in one of the craft aisles at Hobby Lobby and in typical kid fashion said "I want one of THOSE."  In a moment of weakness I stopped to look, whereupon the two girls chimed in "Me too, me too, we want THOSE!"  

Hey, if they are that intent on having cardboard ornaments as big as their heads, who am I to stop them?  (Plus, they were a lot cheaper then pre-decorated models!)

Blair went non-traditional with a blaze orange color scheme.

Brynn's ornament got a bit of everyone's favorite colors.

And in an uncharacteristic moment, Ian went for precision instead of speed and over-all paint quantity.

Poor Cam was too little to paint (even I'm not THAT crazy), so he got a smaller version, painted in more traditional colors.

I also tried out a new ornament-making project this year, inspired by Pinterest.

(image borrowed from here)

Here is my first attempt.  One mistake I made was that I accidentally bought frosted instead of clear glass.  I also used metallic paint, which didn't show up very well.  It just sort of looked muddy. (Silver paint with glitter was a complete bust - it never stuck, just puddled in the bottom.)

I had better success when I switched to regular red and green acrylic paint.  The colors were a bit more garish, but the marbling was actually visible.

Once I got the technique down I let the kids help me with the remaining ornaments.  They thought dripping paint and rolling the balls around was great fun, so maybe they'll talk me into doing it again next year....maybe.

I hope you all are enjoying your last chance to make something before Christmas.  I've still got a few projects in the "not done yet" stage, so I'll keep you updated.

Merry Christmas!