Baby Food Jar Week: Baby's-First-Christmas Ornaments

Since I started yesterday's post with a confession, I suppose I shall start today's with one as well. Here it is: I never believed in Santa Claus. I know, right? Pretty crazy stuff. This confession has been met with a number of reactions through the years, but the most common opinion seems to be pity--that somehow my parents failed me by never telling me that Santa Claus was real. But in all honesty, that is a little bit obnoxious to me. I don't feel like I missed out on anything , except maybe having a cool story about when I found out that my parents had been lying to me my whole life, and I am okay passing on that. When everyone else is sharing their stories, I just tell people the story about the mean third grader on the bus in first grade that had just found out and wanted to spoil it for me. He said "Santa Claus isn't real," and I said "I know." I don't think it was quite the reaction he was looking for.

But really, don't pity me. I love Christmas. I always have and I always will. I still left out cookies for "Santa Claus" and my parents ate them (just like everyone else's). As we grew up we started leaving rice pudding for Nisse, a mischievous Danish elf that tends to play pranks if not pacified (we are part Danish). We didn't believe in him either, but rice pudding is my Mother's favorite dessert. Basically, Santa Claus was a fairy tale, much like Cinderella; it isn't real, but it is sometimes fun to pretend like it is.

In any case, I don't think my Christmases have suffered for my lack of belief in Santa. In fact, I still love it so much that I have been doing some ornament making in September. Then again, maybe I have just been scarred for life and am overcompensating for it. Oh, well.

I think these ornaments would be especially cute as a baby's first Christmas ornament, but they work as ornaments in general as well. This coming Christmas is not David's first, but he was far too young to have baby food last Christmas. I guess for babies born in the latter part of the year this will only work if  he or she has an older sibling (or a neighbor) to get the jars from.

I made the holly ornament by cutting out the leaves in wax paper, painting them, and applying them to the inside as I did with the candle holders. I then put the berries on with a paint brush on the inside. When that was completely dry, I put white paint inside and rolled it around, much like in the apples. The words I painted on the outside, which makes them more susceptible to being rubbed off, but I didn't feel like putting writing on the inside today; I was lazy (but in my defense, we all got flu shots this morning and David is about a half a millimeter away from another tooth).

The hanger is attached through a hole in the center of the lid, which I punched with a nail. I simply put both ends of some wire through the lid and twisted them around a bead that is larger than the hole.

The Santa face I just painted on the inside of the jar. I was going for a rougher look, probably because every Santa craft I have ever done looked that way. That is possibly because almost every Santa Craft I have done in the past was done in elementary school. Still, I think it is a viable Christmas aesthetic.

For the hat I used some red fabric that was apparently once a sheet (I got it from someone else who had already cut it up), but felt would probably be great for this. I cut the shape to the right. The long side is slightly longer than the circumference of the lid.

For the fur trim, I used some batting and cut out a circle a little larger than the lid. I then cut a circle out of the center by folding it in half. I was going for a circle the size of the lid. The resulting ring was slightly too small to fit around the lid, so I just stretched it until it fit. For the white on the end of Santa's hat I just used part of the scrap from the center of the ring. You could use a pompom if you would like.

The next step is to attach the hanger, which I did exactly like the holly ornament. I then assembled the hat on the lid with hot glue. I glued the bottom edge on first and then mad a tiny hole for the hanger to come through. Finally, I glued up the seam. I glued the batting on in the appropriate places and put a dot of glue near the tip of the hat on the seam side and glued it down to hide the seam. Santa hats shouldn't stand up straight anyway.

Really, the patterns and possibilities are endless. This post from Crazy Little Projects has some really cute snowman faces. Baby food jars do make somewhat heavy ornaments, but I think a fake tree should be able to handle it fine and if you are careful about placement a real tree should be fine too.

See the rest of Baby Food Jar Week:

Apples

Storage Vessels

Tea Candle Holders

Coin Sorter