Personalized Ornaments or Gift Tags

on the tree, next to my sister's ornament

Every year as we put our tree up it is fun to see the ornaments we have collected throughout the years. This year as I unpacked the ornaments, I surprised to find those that my sister Misha had made me. They were simple, but thoughtful, and I had not really given them much thought in the past. Except now she is gone, and they are a beautiful memory of her. To know that she took time to make something by hand for my family and ship it off to us is very special.  It was bittersweet. I can just see her, sitting in her living room with the supplies gathered around; curling ribbons and writing with paint markers in her pretty handwriting. Growing up we did a lot of homemade ornaments and she was carrying on that tradition.

So after reading a post at Rosemary and Thyme today, I realized I had everything I needed to make a few special ornaments for my friends and family! Hopefully they will think of us each year as they decorate their trees! This is a very simple project, I used our Clay Polymer that is pliable until baked for 15 minutes and rolled it out with a jar. After some thought and searching through all our cookie cutters, we decided to use a small jar lid to cut the circles and a straw to cut the twine hole. We had to do a custom shape for those with much longer names :) I recently bought a kit to imprint letters onto cookies and we used it to print each family's name. On the back I used a toothpick to hand draw a heart with the year '14.

finished product

the "fancy" version

a little personal touch on the back

the tools, before baking

Supplies:
Clay Polymer
Letters
Twine or ribbon
Roller - I used a small jar
Cookie Cutter/lid/sharp knife - to cut shapes
Straw - the perfect size to cut out the twine hole
Glitter and glue (optional)





Follow the directions for your clay on baking time and let them cool before tying on some pretty twine or ribbon. I decided to dress up a few, that I won't be sending via mail, with glitter around the edges.

I think they turned out so sweet, yet simple enough to go with any decorations. I will use them to wrap up a few gifts too. It was a good project to involve my boys too, and they made one for each of their teachers to include with a gift card.

Everything you need for your project:

Christmas Decorations for Outside on a Budget

Beautiful Christmas Home Decor for Outside

For several years I've been putting time into decorating the outside of my home with garland, bows, Christmas balls.  You can do this and you do not need to spend an arm and a leg buying already "fancied-up" and expensive garland.  I buy the inexpensive garland, wrap it with lights, tie on a couple sizes of Christmas balls (red) and join it at the top with a pretty 36" decorative swag. The swag below was already decorated with glittery balls and artificial fruit and gold twigs.  I joined the two sides of the garland and the top swag with the two strings of LED lights (any lights will do but less chance of burn out when using LED lights).  Note that I made a big burgundy bow, fastened it high about the door with a couple of green velvet and gold streamers for a more elegant effect.

When I first put this together about 10 years ago, I found really large white cup hooks and they stay mounted up either side of the door (4 on each side) year round. I put three above the door frame, another up high for the burgundy bow and four down either side of the door frame. The hooks keep everything from blowing in the wind and the garland close to the door frame. I hide the bottom of the string of lights under the porch door mat and the outside plug is close to the door. I do not bother to unplug it during the day time.  And by the way, the wreath was really really inexpensive, but elegant.

Close Up for Top of Door

Entire Door Decoration

Garage Light Wreath

The Garage Light Wreaths are quite inexpensive and I just wrap them with left over gold garland and found inexpensive bows at a close-out sale.  I just slide them up over the bottom of the light and push hard for them to fit over and behind the top back of the light.  They are simple but really add much color and festiveness.

Garden Gate

For a couple of years now I've been putting a bouquet on my Garden Gate with very little thought.  Because we have done extensive work in our back yard this summer, I wanted to enhance the outside approach to the backyard by fancying up the Garden Gate.  I had a gallon of miss-mixed paint I picked up at Home Depot for $5 that I've used for several projects and figured it would be 

appropriate for the garden gate.  The hardware on the gate are all estate sale and flea market finds that I had been collecting.  This summer I put a mixed bouquet of artificial summer flowers in a basket

to hang on hooks attached to the gate.  I've just taken down the basket of artificial fall flowers and

hung the Christmas wreath, a little bigger than the garage light wreaths, but used the same bow.

I've had the wreaths for many projects over the years, but now I am sure they will have a permanent

Holiday Home!

So for your own home....you've got time to do this and above all you can keep your expenses really low. You've probably got all you need right now in your attic or stored in the garage in forgotten boxes. Your guests will arrive with a feeling of being warmly welcomed and your neighbors will

appreciate the beautiful addition to the neighborhood.