12.16.07 Crystal Beaded Christmas Ornaments

Remember these? My son brought one home the other day, he had made it for our Christmas tree. It inspired me to try and make them digitally (might have been easier to go to the craft store, buy the beads and wire then string them once I got home and scan them in...but whatever!) There's a certain thrill in creating something completely on the computer (I think I'm becoming a digital geek! LOL)

The ornament that Ethan brought home reminded me of all of my favorite ornaments. I have a pretty eclectic tree. Wherever we go I buy an ornament and I've mixed them with all of my favorites as a child. My tree has Waterford crystal ornaments, small wooden ornaments from my favorite Christmas store in the world!(If you haven't been there, you simply must go!) all the way to paper ornaments made by my children that I've lovingly packed away each January to try and keep them safe until next year. I even have the ornament that my family chose to place on the tree at our family cemetery the year after my mother passed away. But of all my ornaments, the ones that my children made with their little hands are far and away my favorites. Every year, just when I think I'll pull my hair out because of all the little details and jobs that the holidays inevitably bring, I get to sit down and unwrap all of our family Christmas ornaments. Every one I unwrap brings back wonderful memories, better than any scrapbook I've ever made.

So - while these may not bring back any warm memories of Christmas' past for you, I do hope they represent some of those long ago days when our little ones came running home from school with a (let's face it) hideously wrapped gift made of popsicle sticks (with almost all of the former red popsicle stains off of them) glue, glitter, sequins and yarn. Only to rip open the gift themselves and happily run to your meticulously decorated tree and hang their gift right smack dab in the middle of the front of it, with a huge smile of pride on their faces.

That is, after all, what Christmas is really all about itsn't it?

Mele Kalikimaka to you all -

Shauna

P.S. Why should the kids get all the fun? I've included my single beads so that you can make your own!

Click HERE or on the title to download