Ornament exchange

Every year at this time the book club that I belong to does an ornament exchange. This group of ladies has been really a wonderful force in my life in many ways...were it not for them, I think that the adjustment to moving here (rural BC from Vancouver) was one that I might never have made.

We do that 'each brings a gift' game - is there an official name for it? We draw numbers and each, in turn choose gifts from the table - or choose to 'steal' another's gift...things can get quite spirited! It's loads of fun, and it never fails that the most beautifully wrapped things go 'round and 'round. One year I'm going to wrap mine in crinkly brown paper and jute, just to see what happens.

The last two years I've played with the idea of giving an 'ornament'. It struck me that we never said 'tree ornament'!

Last year I made silver earrings loosely shaped like Christmas trees, and this year I wanted to do a collage.
Being book club, it made sense to do something based on book parts and imagery. I built the background with scrapbook paper and laminated some cherub/angel tissue to it using fabric medium. I lucked into finding this charming picture in a '50's era Reader's Digest Condensed version of a book called 'Joy in the Morning'. The picture is perfect, the window in the store reads 'Merry Christmas' backward, and the date on the calendar is Dec 24. I cut out words that said 'Merry Christmas' (top) and 'love and joy come to you' (bottom) and laminated the whole works along with a bronze skeleton leaf using another layer of diluted fabric medium. A light sprinkle of bronze 'radiant rain' watercolour spray, put everything in a dollar store frame, et voila! A Christmas 'ornament'.

Trish got this one, and I'm glad that she did.

It all sounds pretty seamless, but in reality I have 2 others here that weren't so successful. They'll go back into the paper bin and something else will be made from them, no doubt.

Hope your season is shaping up to be a merry one, with those you care about most.

Lisa