Ideas

Last year we decorated our tree with a few of those little feather birds you find at craft stores. Duane really loved them and wanted to hold them all the time. He still finds them and carries them around for a few days. (I'm not very good at hiding things).

This year, I thought it would be a fun idea to decorate our tree with a theme. The theme, of course, being birds. Since the idea came to me, I've been scouring the internet (ahem, pinterest) for ideas to make ornaments. I've already collected some fallen walnuts for the kids to paint with glue and decorate with glitter. I wanted to do the same with some pine cones, but haven't found any.

Owls. I would make them with Christmas colored fabric and I would make them smaller. You know, ornament sized. :D

Stringy Ornaments. I thought they could symbolize nests.

Glittered Birds The link shows glittered deer, but you get the idea. Simply find birds instead of deer. I love that the kids could do this one.

Button Wreath It isn't really a bird thing, but the kids could make them.

Hand Print Ornaments Again, no birds, but something the kids could do.

Butterfly Leaf Lantern Vase

I made some cute leaf lantern vases! They are really pretty when lit with a proper candle, but I don't have one on hand right now. I will try to add pics if ever I remember when I have a candle that fits nicely.

These are the things I used. I've been collecting leaves every day on our walks and pressed them between the pages of heavy book with more heavy books piled on top. I actually ended up NOT using the ribbon. I thought the vases looked better without it. Here is the finished product:
















I just used the mod podge to glue the leavs to the glass. Next time I will probably get a flat vase instead of a rounded one, it was a little tricky getting all the leaves to lay flush against the glass. I also just painted the bottom of the leaves first, then added a layer over the top when the leaves had set.

Turkey Window clings

I saw this idea for snowflake window clings made from fabric paint and thought it would be way fun to do turkey hands. The snowflake version says to use wax paper. I gave up on the wax paper and used a plastic freezer bag taped over a tracing of the turkey hand instead.