On the Seventh Day of Christmas.....Ornaments!

Seven swans a swimming.....  Have you guys ever noticed how many birds are in that song?  There are giant hordes of birds that come every fall and nest on the parking garage at work on which I park and they continually cover my car with bird poop.  Yuck.  Walking out in the dusky evening after work is like entering an Alfred Hitchcock movie or something.

Anyway,  not a big fan of birds.

But what I actually wanted to talk about today was the fun Christmas ornaments I made this year! I've decided I'm going to do an annual ornament for Anna Banana,  and this year I was inspired by Mollie over at Wild Olive.  Back in the fall she presented this cute, simple paint and embroidery combo, and I decided to use the approach for Anna's ornament.  I made and ironed down a freezer paper stencil of the letter A then painted it in with watered down acrylic paint.  Mine doesn't look as "washed" as hers, I think I'd have done better using watercolors, but after bit of embroidery and assembly with some trim: POW! Cute Christmas ornament!

For Mike this year I decided to go BMW themed, as I always try to pick something relevant to his current interests.  Past years have included the Wi-fi/Ampitheater ornament, the Evernote ornament, and the Sons of Anarchy ornament.   He got his BMW motorcycle in March or April of this year and was very proud to have ridden it ~22,000 miles by mid-October, so I thought the BMW logo would be a good choice for this year's ornament.  Unfortunately, I don't have a very large selection of silver fabric (I think a solid silver would have been better) and have still not mastered the art of sewing a circle, so there are pointy-outy-bits, but that's ok.

Hope any birds in your Christmas celebrations refrain from pooping on you!