Felt Monogram French Knot Ornament

These are really cute and simple ornaments that you can make to add to your Christmas ornament collection or give as gifts of present toppers to friends and family! Since we are still trying to build up our own family ornament stash I made two ornaments for both my sweet little boys this year. These are really fun to make and if you have children that are old enough to use a thread and needle, it can be a great family project too!

All you need is:

• felt
• scissors
• embroidery thread and needle
• hot glue gun
• decorative trim

Start by cuting out he shape and size of ornament you want. I used a plastic cup to cut circles for my ornaments. You will need two pieces of felt the same shape for each ornament you are making.

Trace the letter or word you want to french knot onto one of the pairs of cut felt.

With the color thread you choose start to make french knots in the spaces that you have traced on the felt until you have filled in the area completely. If you are not familiar with how to make french knots, click here for a good tutorial, they are really easy to do.

The next step isn't necessary but I decided to snip little holes evenly around the perimeter of the felt and do a simple single crochet with embroidery thread around the edge to finish it off.

With your second piece of felt you will want to attach a piece of cut embroidery thread for your hook and attach it with hot glue.

Then onto the same piece of felt attach any decorative trim that you have on hand to the perimeter of your ornament.

Then take your french knot felt piece and glue it onto the piece that you just added a decorative trim to. Now your ready to hang or gift this adorable little french knot monogrammed ornament!!

Christmas Tree Trunk Ornament

Before you toss that Christmas Tree to the curb keep a piece to remember it by! Saw off a piece of your tree trunk each year to make an ornament!! 

This project is super easy and can be as cheap as Free! All you really need is a piece from your tree trunk and an eye hook or drill a small hole in your disk to string a thread through to hang it with. And if you are feeling so inclined and creative you can add some sparkle and fun with some ribbons, beads, glitter, or whatever it is you want to personalize your ornament with.

Start by screwing an eye hook into the top of your trunk disc or you can even drill a hole straight through your disk and then string some thread or ribbon through to hang it with.

Next write the year that your tree was used in. You can either leave it at that or add some embellishments. 

Christmas 12'

I love Christmas, and I love that I live so close to my family that I can spend time with them on Christmas! This year we had our Christmas feast with the whole family on Christmas Eve.

Ben's not looking, Scott cant be seen cause hes taking the photo and porters head is cut off but its the best shot we got :)

And one of my favorite parts of our Christmas get togethers started 6 years ago in a movie theater in Brentwood California. Six years ago is when Ben and I first saw the movie Dan in Real Life. The families of the movie get together each year for their annual Christmas talent show. I nearly came unglued!! This was the only thing missing from our family Christmas celebration each year. Now all I had to do was pitch it to my family and hope that they would be wiling participants in this new tradition. I must have been very convincing because we haven't missed a talent show yet! Of course "talent" is used very loosely in regards to our shows :) but they are always fun, hilarious and sometimes nail biting. Best of all, we video tape them each year...oh the hilarity!!

Each year we have a new talent show host who of course has to wear one of the Hideous host Christmas sweaters. This year the twins co-hosted for us.

Here's just a sampling of some of the acts....

Dad giving the little ones a tutorial of how to brush your teeth the right way

A few jams on the xylophone from me

Mom and the Campbell kids signing a song

Ben juggling oranges

I'm preforming the helicopter with a hoola hoop

McKenzie and Sarah singing a top ten pop song

Porter singing and signing a song

I married a king!!!...and I love him!!

On Christmas day we started our morning off my opening a few presents with big E. To our surprise he was really in to it this year!

 He was loving the new mini chair his grandpa got him

After presents we set out with my folks to enjoy our annual Christmas tacos at a little shop in Lodi. Two years ago I was pregnant and craving a dirty little authentic taco. It was Christmas day and even though Ben, my parents and I knew there was no way any restaurant would be open, we set out on the open road anyway. To our utter and glorious surprise a small family owned authentic Mexican taco shop was open and I feasted on more tacos than I would like to admit. Ever since that day we have made it a tradition to eat there on Christmas with my parents. This year was no exception. That is until we drove up and our little taco shop was CLOSED!!!! Bah Humbug!!! So we drove up and down and around Lodi looking for a replacement only to find that the only three restaurants open were iHop, McDonald's and Scrambles. None of us had ever been to Scrambles so we tried our luck! It wouldn't have mattered where we ate because we always have a great time when we are together.

We hope that you all had a wonderful and relaxing Christmas filled with food, fun and a peaceful remembrance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Crochet Christmas Tree Ornament

Christmas is just around the corner!!!!! and I am so excited!!!! Can you tell by the use of all of my exclamation marks!!!!!!! Ben and I have decided that since we now are a family of 3 that we should probably try a little harder to decorate for Christmas. That includes bulking up our Christmas ornament collection which is on the verge of extinction. So in an effort to save money and use up some extra yarn, I decided to give our ornament collection a little boost with a cute and easy crochet Christmas tree.

I started by:

• chaining one then do (2) single crochets in that chain
• chain one and turn
• do (2) single crochets in each of the two previous single crochets, chain one and turn
• repeat this step doing (2) single crochets in each chain until you have reached your desired width for your tree.

• To make trunk simply single crochet in the middle of your tree until you have reached desired length. Sew in all of your tails.

Then I added a little yellow pom pom and a hook to serve as a bright and shinning start for my tree.

Felt Christmas Tree Ornament

If you're like me you have a craft stock pile with a random assortment of supplies for things you've done, you wanna do or for things you had good intentions of doing. Every so often I try and go through my stock pile and see if there isn't anything I can use for a handy project or if its finally time to donate them to the trashcan. This time I found a pile of felt squares from a project I did two years ago. Since I have been on the "make my own Christmas ornament" kick I knew I could use them for something! I was thinking of something along the lines of a Christmas tree ornament but the colors weren't quite what I had in mind. As you can see that didn't stop me!! Who said a Christmas tree had to be green! :)

Materials I used:

• Felt
• scissors
• needle and thread
• pen
• circular object(s) to trace

• I started by picking the order in which I wanted my colors for the tree then starting with the widest part of the tree I traced a circle and cut out the felt. I cut three circles for each color. Then I cut out a slightly smaller circle for my next color and so on and so on until you have your smallest circle for the top of your tree. 
• I then traced and cut out a small star to top my tree. 
• Next I threaded a needle and starting with the base of the tree ran it through the felt all the way to the top and through the center of the star to secure and finished by tying a knot at the top to form my hook.
• Then I cut a long strip of brown felt and rolled it up to make my trunk. I glued it to the bottom of my tree to finish it off.

Happy ornament making!

Christmas at the Lichty's

Its Christmas @ the Lichty's. The tree is up and the stockings hung! A few years ago I saw a show on HGTV featuring families who left their Christmas decorations up all year long. My initial thought was, thats crazy town. This year while putting all of our decorations up it crossed my mind that all this work was for 1 month. One month of enjoying the tree and ornaments, one month of singing carols and stuffing stockings, one month of house lights and santa beards, one month of christmas cookies and candy canes. And suddenly the idea of having Christmas all year long didn't seem so bad. I look forward to it all year long and I can see the appeal of being able to enjoy it 365 days. So maybe those families aren't so crazy town after all...or maybe just a little :)

As you can tell I like a little bling on my trees :)

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Mom and dad gave us this great advent calendar this year that we are excited to use

And even our friend above the fireplace got a little festive spirit with some homemade embroidery thread pom poms.

I've been having a lot of fun with these embroidery thread pom poms. It seems for one reason or another I have piles and piles of embroidery thread lying around, so instead of making yarn pom poms I opted for embroidery thread ones and I love them!
Merry Christmas from the Lichty clan to yours!!