How to make…

This year I’ve been mostly on my own to start decorating our large tree, and let me tell you… I MISS MY THREE TO SIX ELVES. I used to call myself the Christmas hooker, because all I did was put hooks on ornaments and hand them over to volunteers who’d work for fun, food, and good tunes to hang them on the tree.

There are so many bins of ornaments that I was overwhelmed, so this year, I made the decision to leave a whole lot of them in the bins, and that included most of the beautiful ornaments that have been made for us by children and gifted stitchers and other arts and crafts friends through the decades. THEY ARE STILL HERE AND STILL LOVED. They’ll be hanging and beautiful again on future trees.

On the other hand, I’ll offer a Saturday morning pictorial of How To Create An Ornament That Nobody Will Want*.

Back in July of last year, I had a bunch of 2-inch by 2-inch canvases and painted all of them on the same day, for future use as wanted, with acrylics. I picked one of those for An Ornament That Nobody Will Want. Enjoy!

Step 1. Do an online search for free downloadable mini mandalas, and find a 2015 set from Tiffany Hastie. Be very grateful, download it, and print it on regular paper so you can check the size.

Step 2. Adjust the size (down, in this case) to print on cardstock. Do that and pick your pens.

Step 3. Get to coloring and realize you don’t need those sticking-out circles for what you’re doing. Oh, well.

Step 4. Cut out the mini mandala and pick a canvas.

Step 5. Pick your glue. Be grateful for your friends who have taught you from their experience to organize and label all your craft supplies.

Step 6. When the glue is dry, take your wee canvas outside with your preferred spray finish (in this case, matte), spray it, and leave it outside to dry.

Step 7. Time to call in the muscle, in my case, Tom, to find the right hook and insert it into the wood frame of the canvas.

Step 8. Find and cut the right piece of ribbon from this mess.

Step 8. When the ribbon is on the hook, hang it on the Christmas tree. Festive fun!

*An Ornament That Nobody Will Want is not a bitter name. It is a truth universally acknowledged that crafting is in the pleasure, art is subjective, and experience is a teacher. Also, Becky is not a perfectionist unless she is ruthlessly editing someone’s (including her own) writing. Which she’s about to get back to doing.