Hosting an Ornament Exchange

This December I hosted an Ornament Exchange with some of my crafty friends. :)  The idea is to have 8 friends (your number can vary) each make and bring 8 handmade ornaments to the party.

Then serve food, make a small craft together, drink hot cocoa while listening to Christmas music and exchange the ornaments.

Each participant gets to talk about their project - the struggles and victories, fun, etc of making them.  At the end of the evening, you get to keep one of each of the crafts to put on your tree for years to come.  What an awesome time that we had!






This year I chose a rustic woodland theme for my Christmas decorations.   I put burlap ribbon on the tree and added lots of little woodland animals.

It was fun to go through my ornaments from years past and pick out things that would match the theme for my tree.  I found some pinecones and added them to complete the rustic look.









I wanted to keep with the woodland theme for my exchange, so I sewed some burlap heart ornaments and added some rosettes and other embellishments to them.  Each one is a little different.

The ornaments that the ladies exchanged were all incredible!  It was fun to see all of the thought and effort that went into each of them.  There were cinnamon stick trees adorned with ribbon, light-up tea light snowmen, origami trees, wire stars, gnome bottom holders and more.  I wish that I had taken more photos.

Look at these cute little pinecone stars embellished in the center with a burlap flower.  My friend Melissa picked these pinecones out of her yard to make the ornaments.  I thought it was ingenious.








My friend Carol sewed these lovely red birds made from felt pieces with contrasting fabric for the wings.  They're so tweet, I mean sweet. 

And look at all of these dominos that Tammy made.  We got to each pick two for our exchange.

After we finished up with the appetizers, I prepared a small craft for everyone to work on.  I wanted to keep with the rustic theme, so we did some rubber stamping on birch log slices.

We sanded the logs to make the surface nice and smooth and then added woodland themed stamps and added some red and jute ribbons to finish them.

I love how they turned out!  Simple, but very cute.  They're going to look great on my tree.

All in all, we had a great night, spending time together during this busy season.  Good food, crafts, lots of creative ideas and most of all, good friends.  :)

I can't wait for our party next year!