Let's Start a Tradition...

Yesterday I read my friend Melodye's blog post The Non-Crafter's Guide to Crafting Homemade Christmas Ornaments and I was inspired! She makes a good point... Every good stay at home mom should make homemade Christmas ornaments with their kiddos! Sooo yesterday Carson and I did our first craft project together. Sorry buddy, this wont be your last because of course you all know I love a good project. haha Again, if you know me you probably know I can't just do something simple... I have to make it complicated. So I took Melodye's idea of an ornament that will later become a reminder of just how small Carson's hands were on his first Christmas. Yesterday it was really cold out so I didn't want to make Carson get out in the weather just to buy craft supplies so I tried to come up with something I could make with what I already had.

When I put Carson in his highchair to start on the project he was ALL smiles...I'm pretty sure he thought he was about to eat. Sorry for the pump-fake little man! I started by putting a little paint onto a paper plate and stamping his hand into the paint, and then onto some watercolor paper (just a thick artist type paper, same paper I used for Carson's letters in his room). Note to self: Next time you do a paint project with a 6 1/2 month old take off his clothes, and have something to clean him up with handy...duh.

As you can see if took us a couple of tries to get the perfect little hand print! After I stamped his hand, and got him cleaned up and playing on the floor, I traced around his hand print with a pencil, and then cut it out. I pined the paper hand print onto some pieces of left over red felt (from Carson's stocking project) and then cut out two felt hands.

I then found some red floss, or string, in my sewing box and stitched the two hands together, filling them with a small amount of fiberfill. This was a little tedious but I knew the outcome would be worth it :) Once it was complete I went back and added the date into the palm of the hand. Of course I needed to add something so we could hang it on the tree. I snipped off a little piece of ribbon I had leftover from a super cute diaper wreath Pam made for us at a baby shower, and just sewed it to the back of the hand :) Wha-la...Our first homemade ornament!

I love, love, love the way it turned out and I plan making this a tradition! We'll make these every year with Carson, and eventually Harper # 4 :) I'm envisioning a kid friendly tree in the basement (which will be finished someday) covered in soft hand print ornaments. So cute, and so special!

Notice my ultrasound ornament behind the hand? I made that last year right after Carson's first ultra sound, at 10 weeks. This will forever be on our tree, for its the first picture of our sweet baby boy!