Hundreds of Christmas Ornament Ideas!

November 14, 2019November 11, 2019Leave a comment

Welcome to the 2019 Ornament Exchange Link Party! It’s my fourth year of the blogger ornament exchange and you’ll find hundreds of DIY ornament tutorials and inspiration. This link party runs from November 14th through December 14th, so make sure to come back to add as many of your own handmade ornament tutorials before it closes!

This year, we have 38 talented bloggers hosting the handmade ornament exchange link party! The rules of the challenge were simple: create a handmade ornament for $15 or under, create a tutorial (all tutorials are linked below), and ship the ornament off to a new home!

ORNAMENT EXCHANGE LINK PARTY HOSTS

My Pinterventures • Create and Babble • 2 Bees in a Pod
Across the Boulevard • Elle Marie Home • Faeries and Fauna
Home on the Corner • This Autoimmune Life • Our Unschooling Journey
Domestic Deadline • Inside the Fox Den • Intelligent Domestications
Cookies, Coffee and Crafts • Munofore • Rosewood and Grace
Raggedy Bits • Christmas Tree Lane • Making Manzanita
Mom Home Guide • From Evija with Love • Red Cottage Chronicles
Coastal Bohemian • Our Crafty Mom • Girl, Just DIY! • Pixel Maven’s Retreat
Prim and Propah • Purple Hues and Me • Farm Girl Reformed • Eye Love Knots
Keys to Inspiration • Charleston Crafted • Sparkle Living
Interior Frugalista • Love My Little Cottage • My Family Thyme
Crafting a Family • All Things New Again • Just a Little Creativity

You can see the ornament I created for my new friend Morgan, here.

DIY Turquoise, Silver and Gold Coastal Ornament

I can’t wait to see what you have all created! Link up you ornaments below!

Share your handmade ornament tutorial on the link party below ⇓⇓ Add as many ornament tutorials as you like until December 14th.

2017 ORNAMENT EXCHANGE-FROM URCHIN TO JELLY-FISH

November 16, 2017November 16, 201713 Comments

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.

An InLinkz Link-up

2016 Ornament Exchange and Blog Hop

November 11, 2016November 12, 201626 Comments

Welcome to the 2016 Ornament Exchange & Blog Hop! I’m so excited to be joining this group of ladies again! Thank you to Erlene at My Pinterventures for putting this all together. This year, there are 11 pairs of partners or 22 talented ladies participating in the exchange. The rules of the challenge were simple – create a handmade ornament for under $15 to exchange with a partner and create a tutorial to share on the blog hop!

Erlene ⋅ My Pinterventures Kim · Made In A Day Amanda · The Kolb Corner

Shirley · Intelligent Domesticatons Michelle · Our Crafty Mom

Robin ·Redo It Yourself Inspirations Sherry · Olives-n-Okra

Nicki · Sweet Parrish Place Sherry · Savvy Apron Megan · C’mon Get Crafty

Jelica · A Pretty Fix Emily · Two Purple Couches Christene · Keys to Inspiration

Kati · Houseful of Handmade Beverly · Across the Blvd.

Jeanie · Create and Babble Erin · Suburban Simplicity

Terri · Christmas Tree Lane Maureen · Red Cottage Chronicles

Debra · Shoppe No. 5 Donna · Two Chicks and A Mom

Pamela · Home On The Corner

I love creating new ornaments for the holidays, and making one for someone else is even better! This year I was partnered with Kim, at Made in a Day. I have been following Kim for awhile now, so I was honored to make the ornament for her. I took a look at her tree from last year and saw that she liked anything rustic, gold and deer. I came up with something that incorporates all three elements.

I started out by looking for a deer silhouette on a Google search. Of course, there are hundreds to choose from, but I didn’t want my design to be too complicated since I was going to have to cut it out of felt. I found one I liked and printed it out. I also picked up supplies from Michaels- 2 sheets of felt, 3 small wooden plaques, small Christmas wreaths, and some ribbon. I also needed some cardstock to help the deer keep their form when they were mounted. I already had that on hand.

After printing out the deer silhouette, I cut it out. As you can see, I added a little extra to the neck so I would be able to mount it on the wood plaques.

I then traced with a pencil around the deer onto the felt.

To make sure all my pieces came out the same, I layered them before cutting. I placed the cardstock between 2 pieces of felt. I paper-clipped them together so they wouldn’t move while cutting, and cut all three pieces at the same time. The trickiest part was the antlers, but they came out okay in the end.

I added some tacky glue to the cardstock and attached the felt pieces on both sides. I trimmed up any pieces that needed it.

In order to attach the deer to the wood plaque, I took a little bit of one of the felt sides and separated it from the cardstock. Now I could glue those pieces onto the center of each of the wood plaques.

Embellishing each one was the fun part and is what helped them become more personal. I added a Christmas wreath to one, a red polka-dot ribbon to another and bakery twine with a bell to the last one.

I love how they turned out and hope Kim enjoys them on her tree!

I’m so glad you all came by for a visit today! Be sure to visit the other ladies too and check out all the great ornaments. There is also a link-up if you would like to link up your own creations. Have a Merry Christmas!

FIND MORE HANDMADE ORNAMENT TUTORIALS BELOW AND SHARE YOURS TOO!

An InLinkz Link-up

Holiday Ornament Exchange Link Party!

November 14, 2015November 13, 2015Leave a comment

Welcome everyone!

I am helping host my first ever link party! Remember the pinecone ornament I posted earlier this week? It was part of an ornament exchange and now you will have the chance to see all the ornaments and link up your own homemade ornament!

Welcome to the first 2015 Holiday Ornament Exchange!

Want to see all the amazing ornaments we have shared?

We are linking up all of our ornaments in the link below so everyone can see all the beautiful handmade and/or store bought goodies we came up with!

Let’s all get inspired this season!

The Hosts of the Exchange~

We want to say a huge “Thank You” to all the blogs that shared the exchange announcement on their sites, we could not have done it without you! Hugs!

Make sure to visit all the other wonderful bloggers of the 2015 Ornament Exchange! All of their incredible creations are linked in the link party below.

We want to see your ornament tutorials too! Show us your creations by adding your post to the party below! Please add only ornament tutorials to the party. Thank you!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Paper Pinecone Christmas Ornament-Ornament Exchange

November 10, 2015November 10, 201551 Comments

Hi everyone! I have something special to share with you today! I know it’s a little early to be sharing Christmas ideas, but Erlene at My Pinterventures is hosting a 2015 Ornament Exchange. She has partnered 80+ bloggers to exchange ornaments and we want to share our creations or special finds with you! So, if you’re looking for some holiday ornament craft tutorials or ornament inspiration, you’ve come to the right place!

2015 Ornament Exchange

Today is Day 10. If you want to go back and start at the beginning and see all the great ideas, click here. I was so excited to receive an email from Erlene about who my ornament exchange partner would be. I was even more excited to learn it would be Erlene herself! She wrote to me that this year her tree will be a deep rich red, gold, and white. There isn’t a theme, just a variety of ornaments in those colors and she likes unusual ornaments. Well, I love the white and gold idea, so I went with that. Lauren picked out the idea for the ornament and then I went shopping for the supplies. Here are the papers I chose: a gold glitter, golden stripes, clear vellum with gold hexagons, and I had white sparkly on hand.

christmas ornament paper pinecone scrapbook paper

I also bought the egg shaped styrofoam ball. I had the circle punch already and of course, my glue gun. I started out by punching out the circles from each of the papers. I needed quite a bit, more than I thought I would. I kept running out!

christmas ornament paper pinecone supplies

I started at the narrow end of the egg. I glued on each circle, overlapping them as I went around. Then I added the next layer, overlapping the first layer too.

christmas ornament paper pinecone beginning

Here it is about half way done. I love how it is turning out!

christmas ornament paper pinecone sparkles

After all the circles were attached, I added gold twine to the top for hanging. I think this looks so pretty! It will look even better when the lights from the tree make it sparkle and shine!

I tried it out on white branches too.

Today, I’m excited to be kicking off day 10 of the Ornament Exchange, along with these other great ladies. Just click on their link to go see what they have made!

Displaying 2015-ornament-exchange-day-10.jpg

Love My Messy Messy Mess

Where The Smiles Have Been

I’m so glad I was able to make this for Erlene! Thank you, Erlene, for the opportunity to join in with all these talented bloggers. I have really enjoyed being a part of this exchange.

This will be just the beginning of the Christmas posts you will be seeing! I’m so excited to share some of my decorating, crafts and tablescapes ideas with you!