DIY Kids: Turn Your Christmas Tree into Its Own Ornaments

The holidays are all about making and enjoying memories. Almost every ornament on our Christmas tree holds a personal meaning, which we revisit as we hang it on the limbs of our carefully selected evergreen. This year, we started a new tradition: When we went to the Christmas tree farm to pick out our specimen, we asked them to cut a few extra slices off the bottom of the trunk. That strategic slicing provided us with rounds of wood that we could craft into new keepsakes. I made one for our family tree, and each of our daughters made one that will hang on our tree for now, and then travel with them when they leave home.

技能水平：容易
This project can be as involved or as inexpensive as you want it to be. You can use a drill to make a hole to string ribbon or twine through the ornament for hanging, but if you’d rather not handle power tools, you can put a small screw eye into the top.

TOOLS AND MATERIALS在亚马逊上提供
–Wood slices
–砂纸或棕榈砂锅
–Pencil
–夏普标记
–小饼干切割器
–Stamps and ink
–相片
–剪刀
–Hole punch
–Mod Podge
–小泡沫刷
–用木头钻头
–Screw eyes
–Twine

STEP 1

无论你在切割时多么小心，你的木材切片可能仍然有点粗糙。使用一些砂纸清洁它们并将它们平滑出来。如果您有棕榈砂布，那么工作将更快地走得更远。

STEP 2
现在，是时候决定如何装饰你的装饰。您会发现我们使用了三种不同的方法：手绘，盖章和拆除。

• If you’redrawing在你的装饰上，首先用铅笔轻轻绘制你的设计。年轻艺术家有用的诀窍：小型饼干切割机为树木，糖果手杖和姜饼人这样的形状制造很大的指南。一旦您映射了您的设计，将其与标记中的颜色颜色。提醒你的孩子（也许自己），它不需要完美。它的自制质量将使从现在开始对您更加有意义。

• If you’restamping, the process is pretty self-explanatory: Load up your stamp with ink, and press firmly onto your wood round. Ta-da! Continue until your design is complete. You can go back over with marker to fill in whatever colors are missing.

• If you’reattaching a photograph，将木材切片放在4“x 6”照片上，使其覆盖您想要在装饰上显示的图像的一部分。用铅笔追踪轮廓，用剪刀剪掉照片。

STEP 3

Prep the ornament for hanging by either drilling a hole through the top of the round or attaching a screw eye to the top (see below for more information). For photo ornaments, if you’re planning on drilling a hole, first hole-punch the very top of your picture and use this cutout as a guide. Simply line the photo up with the wood round and mark the hole using a pencil. Then drill the hole in the wood slicebeforeyou adhere the photo with Mod Podge in the next step.

如果您选择去螺丝螺丝路线，您可能无法启动螺丝。如果是这样，首先通过在圆形顶部的小钉子中轻轻敲击导向孔，在圆形的顶部，在您想要粘贴螺丝眼睛。拆下钉子以显示引导孔。

STEP 4

Mod Podge works wonders in preserving these ornaments and preventing the design from fading or getting dirty, which is important as you’ll want to hang them season after season.

photo-covered点缀,应用一层国防部Podge to the wood slice and lay your photo on top of it. Then, apply another two to three coats of Mod Podge on top of the photo, allowing the glue to dry between applications. Two to three coats of Mod Podge should offer sufficient protection for marker- and ink-decorated wood slices.

STEP 5

你几乎准备好了！无论您的装饰物都有钻孔还是螺丝眼，通过它螺纹一块麻线（长度大约六到九英寸）并将末端扎在结时。请使用此循环挂起您的创作。

Now that we’ve finished our first batch, I can’t wait make a set of these ornaments every year—one for me to keep for the family collection, and one for each of my daughters to take with them when they set up their own Christmas trees. By the time the girls leave home, we should have quite a collection—both of ornaments and of the memories they represent!