Good morning!  How was everyone’s weekend?  Mine was crazy busy, but it was fun.  I celebrated one Thanksgiving already and I ate so much food!  I basically had to be rolled out the front door to my car that’s how much food I ate.  But it was a wonderful day with family and I wouldn’t change anything.

*This post is sponsored by DecoArt.  All opinions given in this blog post are my own.*

Welcome to the 5th annual 12 Days of Holiday Ideas event, hosted by Shirley of Intelligent Domestications  and  Erlene of My Pinterventures Between Nov. 11th and December 6th there will be hundreds of new ideas shared by over 55 Co-host bloggers! 

Go here to see our kick-off collection of Holiday ideas as well as all of this years talented participating DIY and Foodie Blogs. Download this years November and December calendars with all of the topics and dates so you can make plans to watch for ideas!

We are hosting a BIG GIVEAWAY from our Sponsors this year! Be sure to scroll all the way down for more information and to enter to win!

Today we are showing you how to make your very own ornament!  And I promise, this isn’t super complicated.  It can be done in one afternoon if you wanted.

Now as some of you may know, I have 2 cats named Target and Amelia.  I love my crazy cats and I have cat ornaments that look like them.  But, I knew I wanted some other cat ornaments for my Christmas tree to spice it up a bit.  So I am here to give you instructions on how to make your own cat ornaments!

Things you need:

-Popsicle Sticks

-Paint

-Pipe Cleaners

-Colored Felt

-String

-Hot Glue

-Sharpie

Step 1: Paint the Popsicle Sticks

This step is pretty self explanatory, but it’s still the first thing I did.  I used the awesome paint from our sponsor DecoArt!  DecoArt is one of the sponsors for the 12 Days of Christmas and they graciously sent us 8 different paint colors to use to our hearts content.  They are also part of the giveaway at the bottom of the blog posts so make sure to check that out!  We appreciate them sending us the paint and sponsoring this blog post!

My personal favorites are the pink, red, and dark blue.  The darker colors covered the popsicle sticks really well, but I had a bit of trouble with the silver.  It didn’t show up on the wood, so I would suggest using it as a top layer to add some sparkle on your project.  The light green was okay but it was kind of streaky so I was not a fan of that one either.  But I painted the sticks to prep them for step 2.

 

 

 

Step 2: Make your Pipe Cleaner Tails and Glue to the Popsicle Stick

I tried to match the pipe cleaner to the correct paint but unfortunately I didn’t have purple or dark green, so I used colors that looked good together.  I tried to make my tails look a little different so my cats had some character.  Here is what my blue tail looked like!

I did have to bend the tails just a smidge so that way I could glue it to the Popsicle stick, but it didn’t hurt the tail at all.  I put a small amount of glue on the Popsicle stick so that I could stick the two pieces together.

Here’s all of my cats with their tails!

Step 3: Draw a Face on your Cat

I used a fine point sharpie to draw a little face on the cat, but you might be able to use a regular sharpie on a bigger Popsicle stick.  I drew two little eyes, a nose, a mouth, and 3 whiskers on each side.

Step 4: Glue a String Loop to the Cat

You can do this step a couple different ways depending on how you want to hang your cat ornament.  I took a bit of thread and hot glued it to the back of the head side of the cat.  You can use twine or even an ornament hook if you wanted, but you will need some hot glue to hold it together!

Step 5: Make Ears and Scarves out of Felt

Originally, I was going to end here.  But I didn’t think the cats looked quite right without some tiny ears and some cute scarves.  So I cut some felt that matched my cat bodies to make some tiny little ears and some red and yellow felt for some wintery scarves.

Step 6: Admire Your Cute Kitties!

I think they turned out so cute!  I now have a clowder of cats for my Christmas Tree which will be perfect to add with my Target and Amelia ornaments.  I hope you enjoyed this cute tutorial and thank you to DecoArt for the paint!  See you on Wednesday for the next blog post!

MEET OUR SPONSORS who have generously donated fabulous prizes for the Big Christmas Giveaway!

DecoArt  winner will receive a prize package valued at $100!

Dixie Crystals/Imperial Sugar winner will receive a Keurig Coffee Maker valued at $100!

Oriental Trading winner will receive an OrientalTrading.com gift card valued at $200!

Cabot Cheese winner will receive a gift basket of Cabot products valued at $75!

Burlap Fabric winner will receive a prize pack of products valued at $50!

Zulay Kitchens winner will receive one Milk Frother and a Lemon Squeezer valued at $21

It’s Home To You winner will receive one wooden Santa sign valued at $65

Giveaway begins Nov. 8, 2019 and ends Dec. 6, 2019. Winners will be notified by December 13, 2019. Sponsors will ship each prize to the winner. There will be a total of seven winners, one for each prize. Drawing is by random selection using the Rafflecopter widget. 

Must be 18 to win. Open to U.S. residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway