Ornament Exchange 2010

They say two bad pictures don't make a good one, but in this case, it'll have to do!



This is the ornament I made for the annual Christmas ornament exchange party.  As usual, I was working till the last minute and didn't take a picture before the party started.  Fortunately, for me, the party was at my house, so I had a chance to snap a couple blurry shots during the festivities before my friend Laney took it home with her.

The idea and the design came from this clever lady, who does amazing things with paper.

I really love it, but I'm not making any more until I get my silhouette machine for Christmas, (Shh!  It's a surprise!  Don't tell me!) cause cutting around all those curves with scissors and an exacto knife was kind of a pain.  And the end result is kind of messy.

But as long as you don't look too closely, it's quite something, isn't it?

As much as I love it, I love the handmade ornament exchange tradition even more.   This year, instead of making a full set of ornaments to trade, participants brought a single (handmade or not) ornament.  We played a little pass-around game to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and everyone got to take home the ornament in-hand at the end of the story.

I got to keep this little couple, made by my friend Jessee. 

Crazy cute, aren't they?  And they smell amazing.   I hung them high to minimize temptation for the little ones.  Unfortunately, that means they're right at eye level for me.  What are the odds they make it through the season on the tree instead in my belly my kids' bellies? 

As long as I was snapping photos, I wanted to get shots of some of the ornaments other guests brought this year, as well as some favorites from previous years' swaps. (You know, so I can steal their ideas later, of course!*)  Unfortunately, my camera battery died before I could photograph them all (both at the party, and again tonight.  Time for a new battery!), so this collection is incomplete.  (And also blurry.  Because in an effort to get a few more shots out of the battery, I turned off the digital display.  Turns out I'm not so good with the view-finder.)

I wish I could remember who made all of them, so I could give credit, but some of them are from as far back as 2002.   But here's what I recall:

First row:  1) Judy Weston, 2002; 2) Rabecca Pierce, 2009; 3) Brown haired lady with lots of kids, 2002; 4) Rachel Winsor 2002
Second row:  1) Margaret Peterson, 2009; 2) Sara VanRy, 2009; 3) Someone Awesome, 2002; 4) Alaska Turner 2009
Third row: 1)Oops.  I didn't mean to put Judy Weston in twice, 2002 2) Maryann Nelson, 2002; 3) Rabecca Pierce, 2010, 4) Natalie Dayton, 2010;
Fourth row:  1) Natalie Gardner, 2010; 2) Stephanie Evans, 2010; 3) Denyse Carter, 2010, 4) Erica Smith, 2009


And finally, for my own photographic records, here's one I made for the exchange in 2007.  They were all different variations of a beaded bow theme.  Come to think of it, every ornament I've made for an ornament exchange has had some kind of beady ribbon thing going on.  ( Here's last year's set.) It's like I'm obsessed! 

*It didn't even occur to me that it was weird to take pictures of everyone's ornaments, until a friend asked if I was going to get a group shot with everyone (perhaps) holding their ornaments.  Umm ... hadn't even occurred to me.  I photograph crafts, not people, apparently.  So you'll just have to take my word for it that there were people there, and that they--the people--were the best part of the whole night.