Ornaments!

Last week the children and I made some felt wreath ornaments. I purchased a kit from Oriental Trading Company (with Grandma Vicki's help) and then we fancied them up a little. Bentley likes to follow the instructions, if there are any. Jake follows Bentley. Viva does her own thing. The boys handed me their ornament and asked me to attach the bow. Viva did it herself without any guidance. She attached the bow on the bottom rather than the top like I did with the boys' wreaths. She likes to be contrary. She has her own sense of style. I like that. I copied her placement on Jake's second bow.

After Jake made one wreath he said he was done. I had to coax him back to the table to make a second one. I never know how long the twins will work with me. If I don't have everything ready or they have to wait too long for me to help them with the difficult parts, I lose my crafting buddies. The problem is that if they only make one ornament and we gift it away, we have nothing left for our tree!

Speaking of bows on wreaths, I hung up a wreath with a big bow on the wall. I hung the wreath so that the bow was in the four o'clock position because that's where I thought the bow's tales looked most natural. Bentley disagreed. When he saw the wreath on the wall he took it down and put it back up with the bow on top. Then he informed me that I had put the wreath up incorrectly and he had fixed it for me! I tried to explain my reasoning to him, but he was adamant that bows go on top.


Later that week we made cartwheel bead Christmas trees from a Michaels kit. It's always nice to get a kit because you have all the supplies without having to search and search for some odd sized bead that you're missing to finish your project. Kits are especially great if you can find them after Christmas at clearance prices. Of course, you might forget you bought them by the time Christmas comes again.

We made the bead trees. They all looked exactly alike until I located my bag of colored stars. This type of ornament doesn't give much room for creative expression, but they are still fun to make. The children enjoyed doing them and so did I.


Grandma Vicki sent scratch angels. The children have worked on them two different times and then Kara hung them up on the wall. The trio protested they weren't done yet. You never know what children are going like doing a lot and what they spend just a few minutes on. You have to try all kinds of new projects and keep an open mind. They also made foam gingerbread men from a kit that Grandma Vicki sent.