Those Unfinished Christmas Crafts

In my Pre-Christmas Fun post several weeks ago, I alluded to a couple of unfinished projects.

Well, I/we did in fact finish them: one before Christmas, and the other may or may not have been finished before Christmas.  But both of them will be used every Christmas for years and years to come, so no worries.

The first project was a handprint keepsake ornament.  I waited until Jas was home one weekend to "share the love" with the paint madness.

First we painted the child's hand...

...and then they stamped their handprint on an ornament:

After being oh-so-patient while they dried...the children went to town decorating their "snowmen" with faces and felt accessories:

Lily Kay's conjoined twins ending up sharing a scarf and a stove-pipe hat.

I really am not a crafty sort of gal...so I have to really screw up my courage to pull off these sorts of things...

...and I'm really glad that I did with this project, because we made memories and keepsakes all in one fell swoop!

The other project that is now finished was a joint effort.  All four children painted the 16x20 inch canvas with black paint...

Don't ask me how long (hint: years!) I'd had this blank canvas.
I originally purchased it for a project I never could quite screw up enough courage to tackle.

...Jas helped with some fonts on the computer, which I traced onto the now-black canvas (I pressed hard enough that I could see the indentation of my tracing).  Elisabeth helped with filling in some of the white on the letters and stable.  I free-handed the "adore"...which made me SO NERVOUS!  I saved it for last, and just knew I was going to irrevocably screw the whole thing up!  I didn't.  Tragedy averted.

And I love it.

I love the reminder - yes, indeed, come let us adore Him.  I might just leave this up all year.