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nest in a {Christmas tree}

Happy Day After Thanksgiving! I sure do hope everyone had a phenomenal day and ample opportunity to relish in all that you are thankful. I am thankful beyond words and extraordinarily humbled by all of my life’s blessings. 🙂

So, growing up I always remember having a bird’s nest in our Christmas tree. Is that weird?

I don’t know where my mom got it. Or where she got the idea to put it in our Christmas tree. But, it was real, and it was there every year. Do regular people do this? Oddly, I don’t ever recall seeing anyone else having a bird’s nest in their Christmas tree. Hmmmm…

But, this weirdness has stuck with me. When we were living in Maryland and a robin’s nest and broken egg found it’s way to our back yard after a storm I snatched it up and new exactly what I was going to do with it. An appearance in our Christmas tree every year it did make. And now it makes it’s home in storage. Now, even that seems little weird to me.

But, when I was on the patio the other day making more driftwood Christmas trees (more on those here) this literally blew up into my space. And I immediately thought “bird’s nest”. It actually kind of looks like it was on it’s way there, maybe the early works of something grand by some little island bird. Sorry dude, it’s mine now. 😉
And, I immediately pictured it in my Christmas tree. (Is that weird?)  So, there it went. Nestled in all snug like. Then, a few days later when I was making some ornaments with these…
I had this idea.

Isn’t it adorable? It’s a baby sea urchin nest. How very coastal Christmas.

Yes, I realize it looks a little unruly in this picture. I had to move the nest to the base of the tree because it’s just too dark to get a pic in the tree. And I rushed through taking pictures because there was turkey calling my name. But, I think it’s super cute. It both reminds me of Christmas growing up and represents our current location. And it’s totally free!

Hey, do you know how to tell if a sea urchin is a boy or a girl??? Me either. 🙂

One little Christmas tree deco to help me along in the Mega Crafty Christmas Tree Challenge. And, a whole whopping ZERO dollars spent out of my budget. Whoop, whoop!

So, seriously, anyone else put a nest in your tree? Know anyone that does? Think it’s just weird? And, what might you think I’ll be doing with the rest of the sea urchins???

diy ornament made from a greeting card

But, seriously, do you ever find yourself cleaning or organizing something when you really should be doing something else. Should be working out? Let me just make sure the kitchen is super duper clean, not sure I put everything in alpha order in the fridge last I checked. Need groceries that I should have gotten 3 days ago? I really NEED to just make sure the cabinet in that other room is all in order, and dusted, and labeled. See what I’m sayin’?

So it really is no shocker that when I was trying to come up with crafty little Christmas ornament ideas for the Mega Crafty Christmas Tree Challenge I got just a wee bit side tracked.

I thought, in order for me to really be able to be inspired I need to procrasti re-organize this cabinet we have with random stuff in it. It’s where I’ve been haphazardly stashing all my random crafty supplies and anything somewhat related to craftiness. But, also in this cabinet is a bag o’ stuff. You know the bag, the one where you throw random stuff you’re not quite sure what else to do with, or stuff you have an eventual plan for, just not a plan for executing the plan. Yeah, that bag. (Clearly this all went down at night.)

I haven’t looked in my bag since we moved to this little island which means I’ve been accumulating stuff for over 2 years. I really don’t know how it started, but next thing I knew I had a couch o’ stuff.

Just ignore the couch, really, there is no further discussion about it needed at this point. 🙂

Is that a handle for something? Yes it is. The plan for that is to go on one of our corn hole boards. Yes, of course the other one is already on. No, of course I don’t have a plan for executing this plan. The current approximate distance between the handle and the board needing the handle…less than 10 feet. The handle ended up back in the bag. Gotta love a spot you can organize disorganization.

Of much more importance, I came across all of our wedding memorabilia. Sigh and smile. We got married just a couple months before we moved to Curacao and I just tossed all the wedding stuff in this bag and forgot about it apparently. (The stuff, not the actual marriage part.)

Clearly the little challenge was on my mind because when I laid out all of these,

I remembered pinning this,

This inspiration pic is a cute little ornament made by Gifton over at Savvy by Design out of paint swatches. But I thought, why can’t I make the same kind of thing out of circles cut from cards we got at our wedding?

By golly I can. And I am in love with it. It’s a simple concept, but made out of meaningful things to us. An ornament that will remind us of a wonderful wedding day every year we bring it out to decorate the tree. 🙂

After I had all the cards out and idea in mind it took me a couple of hours, but really only about 30 minutes of work.

I picked out some of the cards that caught my eye and used the bottom of a glass jar we have as a circle template. Oh how I heart The Homestead.

I traced and cut out 8 circles of images and words I liked and I folded each circle in half.

It just so happened that 4 of the circles were colorful and 4 were more monochromatic (5 syllables, not bad) so I paired them up to alternate colorful then monochromatic. Using a glue stick I glued my pairs together.

I was doing some trimming every step of the way. Whenever new circles got glued together and didn’t line up just right I just snipped away.

Then glued one set of 2 to another so I had 2 sets of 4 folded and glued circles. Don’t forget to carry the 1, it will help the math make sense. 😉

I also scored with this beautiful ribbon that came from one of the cards. At the same time I glued the 2 sets of 4 together, creating the full sphere, I glued the ribbon into it so it could be used to hang the ornament.

Then, because the edges still looked a little unfinished and I have recently discovered the joy of glitter, I beglittered (kinda like bedazzling only different) all of the edges with some silver glitter. Then I hung her and admired her. She just makes me smile.

Everything up in these parts is fair game to get beglittered now. But the first to go down was this little wedding card Christmas tree ornament. I think it adds just the right amount of bling and covers up any cutting imperfections around the edges of the circles.

I just love her. 🙂

This circle says “{Two} hearts share, one promise, one life, one love – forever”. What a perfect marriage sentiment.

The ornament doesn’t scream Christmas, but to me it screams happiness, and that’s the best kind of ornament in my book.

What about you? Have you created any non-Christmasy ornaments that are sentimental to you for any reason? Any other crafty things I can do with the rest of our cards? Other wedding memorabilia ideas, or homemade Christmas ornament ideas? Let me have it.

I am sharing this project here, here, here and here. Check ém out!