Art Bead Scene is having an ornament blog hop and I decided to participate. While I’m not the kind of person that wears a reindeer sweater and decks the halls much, I do like to make ornaments. At Thanksgiving I made my mom happy by decorating the ancestral Christmas tree when I was home (hi Mom!). Which tree is about 500 years old and made of antique wire and the branches from some kind of Bakelite celluloid alloy. It’s falling apart, but my brother Doug keeps putting it back together, and that tree goes up another year.
It is covered with many, many ornaments that I have made. There’s a whole set dating from 8th grade Home Ec class. Another set I cross-stitched. Several date from my Temari Ball days. When I started getting really crafty (in the creative not the scheming sense) Mom asked me to make gingerbread-style ornaments out of Fimo depicting each member of the family. The tree is wrapped in several yards of strung Moravian paper stars that I patiently made over several Yuletides.
This year I have gotten into beading with brass filigree stampings, which, as Dave Barry used to say, would be a great name for a rock band. But just working with brass in its raw state got a tad unvaried, so I bought some Vintaj paints and had some fun. I painted the brass stamping with the “Emerald” paint, which turned out to be a lovely Christmas green. Then I spread on some matte glaze, which made for a nice contrast to all the bling I stitched onto it.
So here it is. Mom, if you’re reading this (and not just scoping out the pictures) I’m bringing it down when I come.
Be sure to check out what other people made by visiting the Art Bead Scene blog December 12th.
A lovely holiday season to you all and see you in the New Year.
