Oh, Valentines Day Tree

Ok, so this isn't really the most current of posts, but what it is is another case of me uploading the pictures then not getting around to writing anything for two months but not wanting to waste what I had already done. So what you get is more Christmas in February. I hope you like it. I was so in love with our tree this year I decided to give it its very own post. This year I hit the jackpot at yard sales and thrift stores for ornaments. I found lots of the cute vintage and homemade kinds of things I love so much. We have had a rule for our tree that we would only buy non-brakeable ornaments. However I have had to amend that to "kid friendly" ornaments after gluing these wooden Santas back together several times. I have realized that my kids can break almost anything given the opportunity. It does make me happy though that they love the tree as much as I do. It is like a tree full of toys for them. I did get mighty tired of putting the ornaments back on the tree every night. Some of my absolute favorites are the ornaments my parents have brought back from there travels for the girls. This little lady came all the way from Russia. I have made a couple ornaments myself and have a huge file of more ideas that will probably never happen. This year, I finished a couple of big Christmas projects that had been sitting around for years though so you never know. I made this little baby the year I was pregnant with Rhodie. Those were the days. We also have the tradition of Santa giving each member of the family an ornament in their stocking each year. We have been doing this for seven years but since this is our first year with a tree, we had never seen them all together before. It was cool to look at them and reminisce about our christmases together. As you can tell we had a lot of fun with our tree this year and I'm so excited for future christmases, pulling out the ornaments and telling the stories behind them. Finally, I can show off one of those, long in planning, long in storage, projects I finished this year.I had the idea for this Christmas tree ring stacker several years ago but just couldn't figure out how to make it work. Whenever I saw it in my project box I would just think, "I will wait for mom's help on that one." Well this year I finally had mom all to myself and instead of pulling out the mending like I usualy do I pulled this out and together we made it happen. I made the ornaments after she left. I like the way the star turned out so much that I may do something similar for our real tree. I bought magnetic necklace clasps at the craft store and sewed them all over the tree. Then I sewed the other side to my ornaments and garland so the kids can pull them off and move them around. The ornaments are made out of felt, embroidery floss and fabric glue so the only sewing was to put the clasp on the back. These four are special because they are minis of my other big project of the year- our stockings. I forgot to take a picture of them but you can see them in the background of some of the pictures in my last post. I have wanted to make christmas stockings since we got married but never got past the planning stage because nothing ever measured up to the stockings my family had growing up. Then, when I was in Portland at Heaven (Oh, excuse me, Fabric Warehouse) I found some beautiful colors of felt and pom-pom trim and decided to just bite the bullet and do something simple. My favorite thing about them is the lining. I found christmas fabric for the lining of each one that matches each of our personalities and fulfills my need for personalization. My mom helped me embroider the names on and we actually finished by the afternoon of christmas eve! I know this was a very long post about things no one else cares about but just remember, now that it is behind me, I can move on and get back to bragging- I mean sharing- about my family. I promise, teeny, tiny girl pics in the near future.