2015 homemade christmas ornament

now that i am working on our ornaments for this year, it seems an appropriate time to share the one that our family made last year.  

our ornament tradition is many years old now, and we have fun choosing and creating ornaments as a family to share with friends, teachers, neighbors, and family.  this little ribbon tree was made on a cinnamon stick so it both looked and  smelled delicious!

the inspiration for this tree came from here. 

 few things warm my soul more than a glowing christmas tree covered with family ornaments!

if you want a peek at our previous year's projects:

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

Stay tuned to see what we came up with this year ;)

#happyholidays

christmas crafting {2014}

i know, i know....you have all been impatiently waiting to get a peek at our 2014 baumgartner christmas ornament, haven't you?!  we did indeed continue our tradition with a homemade ornament, and i love how they turned out!  

our snowflakes were made out of clothespins, and the various steps of taking them apart, gluing them back together, staining them, attaching string and tags all allowed our kiddos the opportunity to participate. 

if you are curious, you can take a peek at our previous year ornaments here:

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

we also did a fun painting project to give to grandparents, and this was a big hit with the kids while making them, and with the grandparents when opening them!

their little thumbprints served as a string of christmas lights.....and i just love that we will be able to look back on how much the've grown as we display these festive decorations! 

oh, and this is how hendrix writes his name these days - 4 years old - i am so proud of him! (though if i don't remind him to start on the left, he wants to start on the right and write the letters backwards.....not sure if that is a product of being a lefty, or if that is just a normal preschool phase.....lol!)

hope your family had a warm holiday season filled with love, projects and fun!  ;)

our homemade ornament tradition continues

we strayed a tad bit from our norm this year with our homemade holiday ornaments.

while they were all glass balls that we decorated with burlap, lace, twine and ribbon; each one was made unique.

this was a really fun family project, as my 3 year old enjoyed snipping the various cloths and stuffing them inside the balls.  daddy was a big fan of winding and wrapping on the outside, and i did lots of bow tying and label printing.

overall, i am very pleased with the finished product, and absolutely love the shabby-chic feel that they add to my christmas tree.  i kept three (so that we have a family one, and both hendrix and blaire will be able to have one of their own for their future tree someday.)

it seems like the number of ornaments that we make has grown each year....and with the fall being such a busy time of year for my photography business, it was imperative that we make an ornament that was relatively simple.

i think in this case, however, simple is nice ;)

for more crafty inspiration, check out our past baumgartner family ornaments!

2009 - felt wreath

2010 - handprint snowmen

2011 - wooden christmas trees

2012 - button wreaths

i absolutely love placing all the hand-made ornaments on my tree every year (both those that we have made, and those that have been made by our friends and family) and reflecting on all the fond memories associated with them.  

we have much to be thankful for!

christmas crafting

i love making homemade gifts. 

though the holidays are a very busy time of year, i always enjoy the excuse to try out some of the creative ideas i browse on pinterest.

we especially have a tradition about ornaments.  

every year we create something special to give to family and close friends.  

this was a tradition that was started with my family when i was a child, and i enjoyed it so much that we have decided to continue it with our children. 

these button wreathes were our 2012 ornament.

you can check out our rustic tree ornaments from 2011 

or our handprint snowmen from 2010 if you are looking for some ideas of your own!

this was a particularly fun project for my two year old to help with.  he enjoyed stringing the buttons onto the wire, and also sorting the colors, or even just moving them from one container to another.  i did find buttons all over the dining room for weeks however......

for the complete tutorial, you can visit martha stewart's link.  

i understand that this would have been more fun to read last month, when you were planning for the holidays, but honestly, i gave these to people who read my blog and i didn't want to ruin the surprise!  ;)

i also crafted these christmas trees, and though they were inspired by pinterest, i actually combined a couple of different projects into one.

mod podge is my favorite crafting tool.  

and, yeap, i got it everywhere doing this project.  

i loved the rustic feel of how these burlap trees turned out so much that i made an extra one to keep for myself.

should i actually be admitting that?!

our hand-made christmas

i love hand-made presents.  my family instilled this passion in me as we would craft ornaments every year as a family to give to our teachers, grandparents and family-friends. this is a fun tradition that my hubs and i have decided to continue as we have started our own little family.

last year hendrix made little handprint ornaments for his family members and close friends and we wanted to do something that was as meaningful and unique this year.

this is what we ended up with:

before you start giving me all the credit for these adorable rustic ornaments, i must admit that i simply replicated an idea that i found on pinterest.  to see the real genius behind this design check out this fun crafting blog. 

you might remember that hendrix had a huge fascination with twigs this fall.  he was always finding them, playing with them, and insisting that we bring them home with us.  it was the huge pile of twigs in our garage that inspired me to choose this design as our ornament this year.  

it was made with love, from all three of us!

they really were quite easy though some tools were required - cutting the sticks to the right lengths was daddy's job.  

oh and the drilling part too.

mommy strung them up and added a lil note and that was it!

i made sure to hold back an ornament to hang on our own tree, and also one to place in a keep-it-forever box for hendrix.  i hope that he will come to appreciate this family tradition and maybe even continue it with his own family someday.

how about you?  

did you make any special christmas gifts this year?