December Creations

Mini macrame ended up being my ornament of choice this year.

I looked at a lot of designs and made a bunch of prototypes before landing on the right size rope and beads.  They took approx. 15 minutes each to make but honestly, it was very therapeutic and relaxing.  I always like it when my ornaments allow me to sit comfortably on the couch and watch Christmas movies while I work.

Originally I made 125 but then ended up making about another 30.  I don't know for sure but I was somewhere between 150-160.

One of my kind friends cut and printed all the red and green cards for me and I added a touch of paint to them...

 

My trainer at the gym, Megan, is an amazing cookier (yes, that's a real term)

She opened my eyes to the world of professionally decorated sugar cookies.

I was fascinated with what she showed me!

I ordered some Christmas cookies from her and signed up for a virtual class.  Long story short, she and her mom and Abby and I all ended up doing the class together at Megan's home.

The class was taught by Luna Ellis (Arlos Cookies).  She told us in the class that she was going to be making Christmas cookies for THE Joanna Gaines!  Super impressive!

My cookies from the class are on the left and Abby's are on the right...

It was much harder than I had anticipated.  I had watched plenty of videos on Instagram (they are quite satisfying) and they all made it look quite easy :)  I was surprised at the difficulty.

                                              

A week or so later I tried my hand at my own first batch...

Colors were not what I had hoped and it was interesting...but fun!

These are the cookies Megan made for me...

Aren't those gnomes adorable?!?!

I was so excited to see macrame cookies were a thing!

I couldn't wait to see how they looked with my ornaments!

Andy found a pattern for a Mandalorian snowflake...

he was pretty proud of it :)  Cutie!

Every year I give the kids a new ornament on Christmas Eve.  This year I wanted to do something related to the crazy year we have been through.  I got on Etsy and found a lot of similar looking ornaments that I decided I could make myself.  My first attempt was pretty unprofessional looking.  I just used markers and I have never been very good at lettering so, yeah...

I figured it was time to dust off my Silhouette.  It had been quite a while since I had used it so it literally took me hours to remember how to do everything and make these ornaments.  They turned out much better than than the first ones though so I was happy.

And finally, our Christmas card for the year...

 The snow globe was a challenge and it didn't turn out like I had hoped but we made it work.  It was Andy's idea to make a wreath out of masks...a subtle touch that we're not sure many people noticed :)