Homemade Ornaments and Decorations

Yesterday I highlighted a couple of decorations that we've made. This post will contain a whole bunch, because that's just something we like to do. Emptying the Christmas boxes always brings back great memories. You can see a few of our projects in this picture:

• The original felt tree/ornament advent calendar (hanging on the closet door)
• The Santa Wayne cross-stitched on a door mat using strips of fabric
• A small ceramic Santa head Weston painted during a summer class
• The coordinated stockings we made that year (1994)

Here are some more, included cross-stitch projects, painting and even some sewing. Some were done by Wayne, some by the kids, and some by all of us. Some were Relief Society projects, some came from our "Celebrations" cross-stitch book,  some were after-Christmas clearance craft kits, and a couple were ideas from somewhere else.

One very simple one we did after school one day was the little felt pillow, bottom left corner to the right of the much more complicated afghan. Another enjoyable one we did when Michelle was a teenager. That's the floss ornament next to the Santa at the top right. We simply filled an empty, clear ornament with short pieces of embroidery floss and finished it with a braided floss bow. (It took more floss than we expected, but I really like how they turned out.)

Even many years later, the stockings , ceramic Santas and wooden trees still look festive!