Thursday, January 5, 2012

How Ornamental

I've wanted to come up with a good anual Christmas tradition but last year I was stumped. I knew I had better decide on something this year or it would be hard to call it a tradition started from the very beginning. After hearing and remembering so many special things about the ornaments my mom made for all the cousins every year, I decided that I would pick up the tradition for my own two person family. Sorry cousins. There are a lot of you. Anyway. For the retro done first Christmas ornament I joined Luke's bouteniere and my hair clip from our wedding attire. I took off the clips of course,



And embroidered them onto a dark gray background.



In silver thread I stitched in the words Just Married, 2010, and my initials JHN as kind of a tribute to how my mom would always put SFH. In sorting through ornaments recently I realized how special and important it was that I have my moms initials and the date. If you're making ornaments be sure to include them! This years ornament was a silhouette of Mickey Mouses head, in honor of our special trip to Disneyland.



Dark gray wool felt again, with black pearl cotton blanket stitch along the edge. I made the Mickey shape with the bottom of a jello cup size gladware and the bottom of a shot glass. On the back of the ears are my initials and the year 2011.



I made one more ornament because a Christmas tree isn't a Christmas tree without one. (Ps. We weren't even going to get a tree but one of Luke's co-workers moved and gave us his nice 7.5 foot one, and Luke had it all set up and decorated when I got here!) Anyway, the necessary ornament:



The pickle! Please tell me your family plays that game too! Anyway, our tree now has a pickle and I have an embroidered wool felt ornament tradition! You can be sure that every ornament will have the year and my initials too! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

2 comments:

Katie said...

LOVE this idea. How special to carry on a tradition that your mom started. Can't wait to see what you make next :)

The Luedtke Family said...

Yes, we do the pickle ornament. Somehow we hide the ornament sometime Christmas morning. We usually pick a "family" gift, where everyone will benefit. Last year, we hid the keys to the kids' playhouse and that was the last gift of Christmas. This year, we found a pool/beach bag where everyone had a new beach towel (scored at the end of summer sales). The kids also got a cinch sack, chair clips to keep their towels up, water bottles, and a rock/shell collector bag. They will now carry their own things to the pool!

I like the last gift of Christmas that is for all!

I don't make ornaments, but I collect ornaments that represent accomplishments. Like last year when Norah rode her tricylce and Simon learned to ride a two wheeler - bike and trike ornaments. Love the meaning! Need to add the dates. Also, photo ornaments are really fun to look back at. Like the ones when we were first married!