Ornaments

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree how lovely are your branches!  Here is our Christmas tree this year decorated by the girls, myself and my son who had more fun taking the ornaments down and gifting them to his Grandmother.  It was funny really.  The girls would be busy decorating and my 13 month old son would sneak over and take them down and feel great joy giving them to his Grandma.  

I remember one year when the girls were smaller I let them decorate the tree all by themselves without any help from me and all of the ornaments were on one spot on the very bottom of the tree.  They were so proud of their decorating.  I just couldn't bring myself to change a thing about it.  It made me smile it made me think as they get older we'll see the ornaments get placed higher and higher upon the tree but for that Christmas it was just a nice reminder of how little they are.  How I wish I could bottle it all up.  Christmas memories are pure treasures.  This year the girls decorated about 3/4 of the tree and at times getting up on their very tippy toes.  I helped with the very top and we did our best to keep the boy from gifting them to others. :-) 

I adore ornaments.  I adore them because they all have a story.  Some are so old and hold such great memories and some have dates to remind us of a special time or of a special someone.  I have ornaments for the year of all my children's births, one that I got as a present the year my husband and I got married, ornaments with family pictures, and homemade ornaments which are my most absolute favorite.  I love how collections of ornaments are different in every single home making the tree even that much more special.

 

 

I went on a search online for ornaments that I would love to have or ones that just caught my eye because they felt special to me.  Here are some that I found on my little ornament search.

 

  Willow Tree Angels Embrace Ornament

 

 

 

Old World Christmas Man in the Moon Ornament

 

 

 

Old World Christmas Ornament Sewing Machine

 

 

 

Marquis by Waterford Traditional Snowman Ornament

 

 

 

Multi-Color Retro Christmas Bubble Lights

 

Oh my word!  Do you remember these?  These bubble lights were my most favorite on my parents' and my grandparents' Christmas trees.  Oh I have always loved these lights!

 

I also wanted to share that for the first time this year I have designed a few Christmas ornaments that are for sale at my shop at Zazzle.

 

Holidays Collage Ornament

 

 

 

Angel Ornament

 

 

Christmas Birdies Ornament

 

 

 

Christmas Birdie Ornament

 

 

 

Holly Jolly Birdie Ornament

 

When we decorate our tree we have all of the favorite Christmas music playing in the background.  Christmas just isn't Christmas without Nat King Cole, and my newest Christmas music must have is Michael Bublé.

 

Happy decorating everyone!  Have fun creating new memories as you hang your precious ornaments upon the tree!

Christmas Quilt

This is a Christmas quilt my Mother made for our family last year.  I love it so much that I thought I would share it with you all.  I'm proud to say that my Mother is a very talented quilter.  If you look closely the quilting design all over the quilt is poinsettias.  You can really see one pop right above Santa's head.  When I was gifted with this quilt I had just had my first son who was two months old at the time, so it was really special to receive a quilt featuring a sweet little boy with Santa Claus.  I love the vintage feel it has, and I am very fond of all of the colors in this quilt.

Then she made us two very large stockings to decorate our house for Christmas.  I love the old fashioned looking Santa Claus, and my son is just now starting to dig Thomas the Train.

 

These are very large stockings about 30 inches long and 14 inches wide.  Sure would love for Santa to fill these up this Christmas!  :-)  She purchased the kits to make these from Jo-Ann Fabrics last year.  They look so sweet hanging on the walls in our dining room.  We sure are lucky to have a quilter in the family.  Something we treasure very much!

 

I was looking around on Amazon for other stockings.  I have mentioned before in posts how much I love snowmen.  Here is a smaller stocking that I found online that I think is absolutely adorable.

 

   

Jo-Ann's Holiday Inspirations 3-D Snowman

 

Decorating for the holidays is so much fun!! 

The Snowman

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is one of our family favorites.  The music coupled with the animation give me good chills every time.  This is one of our must see holiday shows every year.   

 

 The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

 

The book is also delightful with all of the beautiful illustrations.  It is amazing how magical this story is and there are absolutely no words!

 

  The Snowman by Raymond Briggs

Happy Holidays Collection

I know!  I know!  It's really early for this.  We just had Halloween and last thing we all want to see is Christmas before Thanksgiving.  But this week's contest at Spoonflower is the Holiday Cocktail Napkin Set Contest.  I'm really excited about this one.  For this contest we were to create a pattern for a set of holiday-themed cocktail napkins.  I really wanted to go for that old fashioned Christmas feel.  I dearly love snowmen, and I designed this happy guy to go smack dab in the middle.  I don't know what it is about them, probably their jolly good looks, but looking at snowmen just makes me feel instantly happy. 

Home for the Holidays

Also if you would like to see the entire collection please click on Happy Holidays.  In the collection I have created table runners and a tablecloth for holiday home decor.  Some of the designs could look really cute as couch pillows to decorate your living room space for the holidays.  Spoonflower is now using our designs to make gift wrap paper along with fabric, wallpaper and wall decals.  If you are interested in any of the designs please contact us and we will make them available for purchase as soon as possible.  Our contact email is arttreedesigns@hotmail.com

I also have tons of great Christmas items that I have designed for sale at my Zazzle shop.  So if you are running out of time to create something here is a great place to go for fabulous already made items that are unique, and you aren't going to see anywhere else.  I have designed buttons, necklaces, gift cards, kitchen towels, napkins, mousepads, pillows, mugs, shirts, bags and more!   Here are just a few of the fun and festive gifts for sale in my shop!

Christmas Tree Mug

  

Gold Angel Necklace

Holidays Collage Candy Jar

Here is the link to my zazzle shop featuring all of the products I have designed: http://www.zazzle.com/arttreedesigns

Christmas will be here before we know it.  Now is the perfect time to start thinking about home decor and gifts to create for your loved ones.  Thank you so much for checking out our blog!  A big thank you also to all of our loyal customers at our shops at Zazzle, Spoonflower, Bookemon and Society6.  We appreciate your business so very much! 

Tara and John McGowan-creators of Art Tree Designs

arttreedesigns@hotmail.com