2009 Family Christmas Ornaments

As I have mentioned, my grandmother made beautiful beaded Christmas ornaments. Each year, all of her grandchildren could pick out a single ornament from her bevy of creations. As a child, this was a fun tradition, and now as I look at my amassed collection as an adult, it makes me feel a bit more connected to my grandparents.


Last October, I decided I would take a stab at making my own ornaments for my family. First, I designed what I wanted them to look like. I used Microsoft Word, so nothings to scale and I made some design tweaks when I actually made them. I decided to use silver sequins of varying size, white pearl beads, seed beads, silver stick pins, and black velvet ribbon.

And copious amounts of GLUE. Now, before I started on the first ornament, I had a healthy appreciation for the beautiful ornaments my grandmother so lovingly created. As my calloused thumb pushed the final pin into the final ornament, I had a healthy appreciation for the dedication and pure insanity of my grandmother. Wowie wow wow. It took me something like three weeks to make all of the ornaments. I figure I worked on them about 2-3 hours a day, 5 days a week. Wowie wow wow. And I'm not even as meticulous as my grandma was! I didn't CARE if there were exactly the same number of pearls on each ornament! She would count beads and measure distances! Sheesh. I also discovered that not many craft/hobby stores carry a decent selection of Styrofoam shapes and sequins. I bought out the entire selection of sequins and push pins at two different Joanns and had to go back two more times. Sheesh!

But, as I pushed the last pin in, I was very proud of the ornaments, and I know my siblings, parents, and aunt and uncle will appreciate them.

The basic design of the ornaments stayed the same; I just changed the colour of the seed bead to reflect the favourite colour of the recipient. My mom said she preferred ruby, emerald, and Sapphire, while my dad preferred emerald.For my maternal uncle and aunt, I used lovely blue seeds.My oldest brother got another blue ornament, and my sister in law got green. My young nephew, who might or might not have a favourite colour, got an ornament with Denver Broncos colours (his ornament was smaller, and I didn't use an velvet on it--just pearls, sequins, and seed beads). My brother Mark said he preferred browns and grays, so his ornament was tone-on-tone silver.
My sister's favourite colour is red, while my brother in law's is dark Trojan red.

John's was in his Broncos colours.I still haven't made my ornament. When I ran out of silver sequins and velvet ribbon, I made a pink (PINK!!!) starburst ornament. I've had those pearlized pink beads for 15 years and never made anything out of them, even though I've always thought they were pretty. So I decided to use them on the ornament. While pink's not my favourite colour, I sure do think it's a pretty ornament. Click for more blurry, out of focus, low light pictures.