Custom Christmas Ornaments {DIY - it's never too early to start on next year....}

{making}

Yes, yes I know, "Christmas is over", "It's time to move one", "blah, blah, bahumbug".  We may well have passed December 25th this year, but technically Christmas is not over until January 6th (twelfth night, the 12 days of Christmas....... look it up ;) ... at least I think it's the 6th...it's either the 5th or the 6th anyway lol). I really had wanted to do several post over the holiday season about decorations and crafts, but of course that didn't end up happening.  As excited as I am about the new year and new projects though, I just can't leave Christmas completely alone just yet. (Plus now is a great time to get some stuff done for next year, and just put it away with everything else so it's ready to go, or at the very least, actually get it done because once the season hits next year there probably won't be any more time than there was this year haha).

I love for everything in my home to have a story, or to be something that's meaningful to us or tells something about our story.  Have you ever been on a house tour?  My town has a Christmas house tour and a spring house tour (the Candlelight Tour and Garden Week tour), and when you go on these tours they always talk about the decorations and "stuff" in the people's houses and how they got it, the stories behind them.  I find myself, when decorating, or choosing items for my home - especially if they are a find from a thrift store or vacation - writing out a script in my head for what would be said about them on a tour.  For example, this past summer I happened across this painting at Goodwill. It wasn't a print, but an actual painting (acrylics I think) on canvas, and I'm pretty sure it was probably someone's class project but I just really liked it and like the fact that it wasn't a print, and it was $2.99, so it came home with me. As I was on my way home with it, it's bullet point on "the tour" popped into my head: "and here we have an original painting by an unknown artist, that the homeowner found at Goodwill for $2.99 and fell in love with".  So yeah, that's the kind of special I am.

I'm the same way with Christmas tree ornaments (for our main/living room tree anyway).  Especially since getting married.  Actually the majority of the ornaments on the tree right now are super girly and/or barbie and/or ballet related since I had a bunch of ornaments and my husband none, but I really am trying to expand "our" collection of ornaments so that I can get a good number of the girly ornaments onto their own smaller tree somewhere.   I try to pick up ornaments from places we travel to, or visit, especially brass ornaments (I have brass ornaments for Skyline drive, and Virginia Beach, and a couple historic sites for example), and every year we give each other an ornament for Christmas, I usually make mine for JD and he sometimes makes mine sometimes buys them.  And I've also been trying to make an ornament for each year.  And that's really what this post is about, making cool custom ornaments either for yourself, or as a really special gift for someone.

So here's some ideas to get you going:

 Ornaments for a favorite hobby or activity:

This was the ornament I made for my husband this year.... he has gotten REALLY into RC Cars and he even has a you tube channel and his kind of "signature colors" are sparkly green and his "catchphrase" is "keep RCing my friends".  I had seen an idea for making a "manly" Christmas wreath with a tire, so I decided that would be perfect turned into an ornament, using the tire off of a toy rc car, for him.

This is our "2013" ornament.  That was the year we first went rafting down the river and found out how much we love it so I made a miniature raft/boat to look like our inflatable boats, and of course had to add a little paddle and life jacket.  The metal tag with the year I stamped myself.  After buying metal stamps for my stamped silverware project, I'm constantly finding stuff to use them for.

My husband, as well as being a certified chef, is also a mechanic for handicap/mobility equipment (he even had his own business for a while) , and has done some auto mechanic work as well, so one year I made him a tool chest ornament, complete with opening and closing drawers and miniature tools  

He also makes Dream Catchers (he is largely American Indian) and this was the ornament he made for me {I think} the first year we were married.

Another year he REALLY wanted some knee high moccasins, but they were out of the price range for the Christmas budget that year (he has since gotten them lol), so instead I made him miniature knee high moccasins as his ornament that year.

Ornaments to remember travels and favorite vacation spots:

this is ornament contains sand from our trip to Long Beach, CA this past summer.  My husband is from Long Beach, but this was the first time he had been home in almost 20 years.  Somehow despite getting sand to bring home being one of the things he had planned to do he never actually accomplished that, fortunately some sand found its way home with us anyway in my bathing suit, but there wasn't a whole lot of it, so that's why there is so little in the ornament.  If you actually get sand specifically for an ornament like this instead of just what ends up in your bathing suit you could fill it up a little more lol.

{I'm also working on a tiny scale dollhouse of one of the camping cabins at one of our favorite places we've been, Crabtree Falls.  I'm not currently completely finished with it, but when it's done I'll update this with pictures.  It's actually our 2012 ornament since that's the year we first went, so I guess I really should get on getting that done. hehe.}

Make miniature versions of a child's favorite dress up clothes or other special outfits:

One year a few years ago I made a bunch of ornaments for a friend's daughter, that were miniature versions of her dress up outfits and costumes (playing dress up was just about her favorite thing to do and definitely our favorite thing to do together).  I actually ended up also getting a small pink tree for the ornaments and making some other ornaments/signs for the tree that said "Let's Play Dress Up" and things like "princess", "fairy princess" "mermaid", etc. to go with the different costumes represented.  Also some of the costumes themselves I had actually made, others were ones she had bought somewhere.  In these pictures the ornament is the one on the left and the real on is the one on the right.  I wish I could post a pic of the tree all set up too, but I don't seem to have one, or at least I'm not sure what storage device it is on.  I also made another mermaid costume and matching ornament for another friend's daughter, and I know I had pictures of that as well, but it is MIA also..........

{mermaid princess}This was one of the costumes that I made

{blue princess dress}

{butterfly fairy princess} This is one I made too it was actually her Halloween costume one year 

{princess dress}

{pumpkin fairy princess} this was another one of the the ones I made

{pirate princess}this one I do not seem to have a picture of the original costume, but it looked almost exactly like this, I think this may have been the one that turned our the most identical to the costume.

Of course there are many many other options you could do to make your own customized ornaments, there are sooooooo many ideas out there on pinterest and other sites, but hopefully these examples will at least give you some ideas to get you started, maybe as a jumping off point or maybe one of these is something that would be great for you as well.  There is one other ornament that's not quite ready for it's pictures yet and that is this year's annual ornament..... it's going to be a tiny bottle brush tree tied to the top of a honda civic (that's what I drive) hot wheels car (I'm sure you've seen lots of exmaples of similar ornaments all over the internet, I know I've seen a bunch on pinterest and I think a couple other sources, maybe a magazine or two as well) in honor or this being the first year we went and picked and cut a tree ourselves.

And like I said earlier, even though it may seem to late for this year, it's never to early to start working on stuff for next year!!!