Who says slides are outdated? A Christmas Ornament Craft

After reading my brain bit, What To Do With Old Slides, my Mother (Izzy) was inspired; she sent me an email inviting us over to make ornaments, instead of journals, with old slides she and Daddy had.

You have to understand that crafting at Izzy’s house is the equivalent of having every possible creative element at your fingertips.

Baskets of cards, boxes of scrapbooking papers, bins of ribbons, bags and boxes of beads, sequins, paints and paint brushes, stickers, seriously…everything and anything.

On occasion someone would say, “I wish we had…” and up she’d jump to go and dig through a drawer, closet, or the endless, aesthetic wonderland, HER WORKROOM.

AND?

We can make a mess.
Izzy likes nothing better than to make a great big mess during the creative process.

When we arrived, after a wonderfully lazy Saturday morning, Izzy had her entire Library outfitted for us to create. The light poured in on a table layed-out with a workspace for everyone.

With scissors, Tacky Glue, a basket of recycled plastic and paper slides, and a brand new tube of E6000, Izzy helped the girls until they felt confident in moving forward on their own.

Emelie took to painting some of the paper slides. This one was for me – orange, lime green, oooh la la!

The girls tried to plan out their slide ornaments at first, but quickly learned to just begin – before they knew it, the design would begin to reveal itself.

This was my workspace – you can see the print-out from Norma Kooi’s The Joys of Christmas Slide Book that started it all. We used it as inspiration to get started.

Of course, as ours were ornaments, we did have to concern ourselves with what was on the BACK as well as the front.

As each of the ornaments were made, we lined them up on the window to dry.

Some of the ornaments were more classic and monochromatic; like this one now on Izzy’s tree.

Others were cartoonish – made from cute illustrations from past Christmas cards and stickers, or as with Emelie’s Tools ornament for Kenny, inspired by stickers.

Some were just random. I couldn’t pass up the card with the turtles and loved the diagonal striped scrapbook paper.

I’m pretty sure, that all but one of Meredith’s ornaments had a kitty on it. She was also partial to the sticky jewels. It was her mark on all her Christmas slide ornaments.

I like polar butts and I cannot lie…

Of course there was an OMSH ornament (courtesy of my Christmas postcards) – the back of it is here.

The day after our first round of making slide ornaments, I went to Home Depot and picked up a mini-tree (for $2.50, thankyouverymuch, on a 50% off sale) and set it up in Emelie’s room with all the slides on it. PERFECT!

Don’tcha love the Harley Dude ornament Em made for Jeff? And Mer’s LOVE ornament is right under it.

Curious George from Izzy to Kenny. I liked this one a lot.

My very favorite ornament of Emelie’s was this yarn one. That girl just wrapped and wrapped and wrapped…

And it is very hard to resist the eyebrows on the little critter in Izzy’s ornament. She branched out and made a few less monochromatic ones. I need to get a shot of her high heeled shoe ornament – THAT ONE is incredible.

If you need a Christmas Craft – or even if you don’t – this made for a few really fun days over at Izzy’s house. All you need is a few slides, a few supplies, a square amount of time, and an imagination!

To view these and other images of our slides, check out the Christmas 2008 ‘Slide Ornament’ Craft Day at Izzy’s set on my flickr.

Don’t forget the CHRISTMAS COLORING UNCONTEST!

Don’t forget to download the coloring uncontest pages for your kiddos in the 2nd Annual OMSH Christmas Coloring Uncontest!