December 18, 2017

2017 DIY Christmas

Over the years I've posted a few DIY Christmas posts-- decorations and gifts and stockings have all been on my project lists in the past.  This year's DIY Christmas projects mostly revolved around one "theme"-- Cooper.

First up were some Christmas onesies:
2 appliqued onesies that I made with some fabric scraps and one with a quote from Elf made out of HTV.  It's so fun to dress Cooper up for the season!
I've already posted about our Advent calendar that I made for this year.  Here's a current view of how the cards look hanging in our living room-- we'll probably run out of room before the 25th because it wasn't the most well thought out plan--but we'll find a place for all the cards!

Next up were a few ornaments:
I was sorting through Cooper's old clothes and some supplies we used when we has a newborn and packing away lots of his littler stuff when I came across the hat he wore in the hospital and it reminded me of an idea I'd seen to use it in an ornament.  I had some glass ball ornaments leftover from ornaments I've made in previous years, so this was an easy and fairly inexpensive project--I did end up buying new paint pens to use on this, but I needed those anyway and those were the only expense.  I put his hat inside the ornament and put the top back on then I used paint pen to put his name on one side and his birthdate and weight on the other.

Secondly, we made an ornament of his little hand print to capture this moment in time.  I had been planning to make this for a while so I'd been searching for a salt dough recipe--but every salt dough recipe I found was different (different ratios of salt to flour to water) so it made me hesitant to try one.  Then I found this link to a homemade clay and I found several other recipes that matched so I decided to try it out.  I would love to have more pictures of the process--but this task proved to be pretty difficult for us.  I put Cooper in his high chair to make these so he of course thought he needed to be eating.  I gave him a few snacks and then helped push his hand into the clay--he proceeded to use the other hand to pinch pieces off the clay and try to eat it.  But we got it captured.  I let it dry for a few days in our house and then I painted around the hand print to help it stand out.  I also put his name and the year on the back.

Since I don't really know how the hand print ornament will hold up over the years, I also decided to capture a print on canvas.  I decided to try a footprint for this task.  I painted the canvas blue and then used white paint for his footprint.  This one proved to be much easier than the hand print.  I did it right after I changed his diaper while he was still on the changing table--I handed him something novel to chew on and hold while I painted his foot, held it to the canvas and then washed his foot with a wipe.  Quick and easy.  After the footprint dried I added the accessories to make it look like a snowman.  My plan is to do some sort of footprint art every year (for a while at least) and have them all displayed together each year.

There may be a few other handmade items too--but those are surprises for people so I can't ruin them!  It's been a fun year of trying to capture these memories of Cooper!



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