the happy elves

One of the traditions I have at Christmas is to give everybody in our immediate and extended family an ornament.

Some years I buy different ones for each person.

Some years I buy similar ornaments and personalize them with their name and the year.

Some years I make them.

Some years the kids make them.

Some years I forget to give them.

This year I was inspired to give handmade ornaments.

I just finished the last ones up today.

This was my inspiration…

Source: memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com via Stephany on Pinterest

Although we have a backyard full of pinecones I opted to go a bit of a different route with my “merry and bright” color scheme.

In general, I used these instructions from Martha Stewart,which make these elves…

Source: marthastewart.com via Stephany on Pinterest

Instead of using pinecones I used plastic ball ornaments and instead of using wooden beads for the heads I used model magic clay.

I also changed the shape of the shoes.

I drew the faces on with Sharpies, but would love to find a different way to paint the faces. And, I used white model magic clay…in the future I would use something with more of a skin color tint to it.

Other than that I am more than pleased with how they turned out!

My elves can’t stand up on their own, but they hang on a tree just fine.

Each ornament is unique for each person in our family…all 21 of them!

Four elves are hanging in our tree, 12 elves are on their way to New York, and 5 elves are still working on getting packaged up to get sent to Colorado!

I took some photos of the 9 that are still here at our house last night…