Happy Holidays From Photo Book Girl! DIY Photo Ornaments

Happy Holidays folks! I hope you having a wonderful lead up to Christmas and the New Years! Though my photo book and calendar projects have been completed (and I’m anxiously awaiting them to arrive on Christmas Eve), I’m still working on a few homemade gifts for my family – some photo ornaments with the help of my trusty assistant – Photo Book Baby.

This year is the first year we put up a Christmas tree. I thought Photo Book Baby might be a bit young (28 months) for a tree as I was concerned he might find it too enticing. I kept picturing broken ornaments and a mauled tree lying on the living room floor, but I changed my mind after a short conversation with him at bedtime a couple weeks ago, when out of the blue he asked about a Christmas tree. I paused and then asked him curiously, “What do you know about a Christmas tree. What is it?” He replied, “It has lights on it.”

Then I began to feel like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and that night I told his dad that we needed to get a tree.

I didn’t want to spend a lot so I was happy to find this 4.5 foot pre-lit tree for about $25.00 at Menards, a handful of ornaments at the dollar store and two small boxes of mini ornaments at Target for pretty cheap. When Photo Book Baby woke from his nap, Daddy, Grandma and Great Auntie were waiting for him. We decided to do a countdown like we had seen on TV during the Rockefeller Center tree lighting the night before and Photo Book Baby counted down with us in anticipation.

Photo Book Baby is at the age where he enjoys helping out. So we planned on having him trim the tree with us and he carefully hung several ornaments “all by himself” (one of his favorite phrases as he asserts his independence from his parents).

Here it is! It’s not the greatest picture, but all I have on hand right now. On Christmas Eve when we have family over we’ll take some better photos then.

Although I think it turned out great, you know Photo Book Girl can’t have a tree without photos! I also bought some plain wooden DIY ornaments at the craft store along with some holiday stickers. The ornaments were half-off so they were only 50 cents and the stickers were half-off too. Photo Book Baby helped put the stickers on the reverse and I let him get a little messy with the thumbprint reindeer heads. I printed a few photos on my desktop inkjet and “voila” – easy and affordable homemade ornaments for our tree and for the grandparents!

I think I will make this a holiday tradition and we’ll do a homemade ornament each year! I’m also working on some using cardstock scrapbooking paper and more photos of course!

Another idea I may try if i have time is to make a photo garland, similar to the ones I’ve made for Photo Book Baby’s birthdays. Click on the link above for a tutorial. You can easily adapt the shape to a fit a holiday theme such as ornaments, stars, Christmas trees etc.!

Do you have any DIY crafts you do at holiday time? I’d love to hear about them!