1. Welcome to the 2017 Ornament Exchange & Blog Hop! This year, there are 47 amazing bloggers participating in the exchange. The rules of the challenge were simple: be partnered with a fellow blogger, create a handmade ornament for $15 or under, create a tutorial, and ship the ornament off to a new home!

My partner this year is Terri Steffes. She has been married for 40 years!  She has one daughter and two dogs (she would love to have a cat).  I was excited to find out that she is a retired school principal who started out as a preschool teacher, just like me! She loves to read, write, decorate, travel, cook and entertain. We have a lot in common! She actually has 2 blogs, ChristmasTreeLane.blogspot.com and terristeffes.com. I can barely keep up with one! She also likes coastal decor for her Christmas tree like I do, so this was an easy one for me!

You can find all the participants and links to their blogs below. Also, if you would like to join the link-up, there is a button at the bottom to join in the fun!

Meet the 2017 Ornament Exchange Hosts

Erlene ⋅ My Pinterventures Kim · Made In A Day Amanda · Domestically Creative

Shirley · Intelligent Domesticatons Michelle · Our Crafty Mom

Beverly · Across the Blvd. Christene · Key to Inspiration Pili ⋅ My Sweet Things

Nicki · Sweet Parrish Place Megan · C’mon Get Crafty

Hilary · Raising Fairies and Knights Emily · Two Purple Couches

Tina · One Crafty Mess Marie · The Inspiration Vault Debra · Shoppe No. 5

Trisha · Rosewood and Grace Jeanie · Create and Babble Katrin ⋅ Kreativ K

Terri · Christmas Tree Lane Maureen · Red Cottage Chronicles

Toni ⋅ Small Home Soul Ula ⋅ Lulu & Celeste Sue ⋅ A Purdy Little House

Pamela · Home On The Corner Lorelai ⋅ Life with Lorelai Cindy ⋅ DIY Beautify

Debbie ⋅ Tweak and Style Stephanie ⋅ Swoodson Says Chelc ⋅ Inside the Fox Den

Susan ⋅ Super Mom – No Cape! Molly ⋅ Just a Little Creativity

Roseann ⋅ This Autoimmune Life Angela ⋅ Simply Beautiful by Angela

Vicki and Jenn ⋅ 2 Bees in a Pod Joanne ⋅ Our Unschooling Journey

Tylynn ⋅ Bitterroot DIY Sam ⋅ Raggedy Bits Mary ⋅ The Boondocks Blog

Cyn ⋅ Creative Cynchronicity Dione ⋅ Clever Chameleon Quilting

Erica ⋅ Erica Ever After Chelsea ⋅ Love Paper Crafts Evija ⋅ From Evija with Love

Samantha ⋅ Little Bits of Home Hope ⋅ Hopes Crafty Niche Anne ⋅ Orange Bettie

Pam · P.S. I Love You Crafts

---

When I found out that Terri liked coastal decorations like I do, I was very excited! I had an idea for some ornaments I wanted to make and now I could make them for someone else too! I love creating special gifts for others. I already had the sea urchins and I found the embellishments at Michaels. They were on clearance, so I was able to create these very reasonably. I did find sea urchin for sale on Amazon and Etsy and online at Jo-Ann’s. There were even some pink ones, which would look very cool too.

Since my sea urchins came from the California coast, I made sure they were clean before starting. 🙂

I took a small piece of white ribbon, folded it and hot glued it into the small hole on top of the urchin.

I put the ribbon on before the glitter, so that I would have something to hold onto while gluing and glittering. I brushed regular Elmer’s glue all over the urchin and sprinkled on the glitter. I used in iridescent glitter, but you could use other colors too. I made sure to rub it all over the shell. I had a hard time showing you how glittery they are, but they look so nice.

I love the purple one!

Here are the embellishments I found. I didn’t end up using everything, mainly just the different ribbons. I did add some small beads to some of them with some beads I already had on hand.

I cut each type of ribbon into small lengths and then hot-glued them, in the middle, on top of each other, one at a time. Now I had 6 ends hanging down. I made two sets for each urchin.

Once the pieces were glued together, I hot-glued them into the bottom of the urchin, pushing them way up inside using a pencil so I didn’t burn my fingers.

Ready to hang on the tree!

You can see some of the turquoise beads I used on this one.

I also glued some individual beads onto the white ribbon.

I love how the tails turned sea urchins into jelly-fish!

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to make these for my new blogger friend, Terri! Thanks to Erlene, from My Pinterventures, for hosting another year of Ornament Exchange! Remember to check out all the other ornaments below! Have fun creating!

---

FIND ALL 47 HANDMADE ORNAMENT TUTORIALS BELOW AND SHARE YOURS TOO! Use Hashtag #2017OrnamentExchange so we can see your creations on social media.