Baby's First Christmas 3 Ways - Ornament 1

To celebrate baby's first Christmas, I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a personalized ornament. In my enthusiasm I ended up making 3 different ones, all of which I will share this week.

For the first one I wanted the classic homemade hand print in the clay. The theme not only matches our first house ornament, it's also a sweet way to remember how small he was for his first Christmas.

I wanted it to have a handmade almost-as-if-a-kid-made-it feel, so I didn't use a cookie cutter to cut out the circle. Instead I shaped it with my hands and laid it on the cookie sheet.

It took a few minutes and two tries to get the little one to cooperate, but eventually we got a good hand print in the clay. The first time I was worried about hurting him so I wasn't pressing hard enough and didn't get a good print. I also use a chopstick to create a hole for ribbon.

Once it was baked and cooled, I painted it with two shades of aqua craft paint.The back side is the lighter aqua I used on the hand print.

To commemorate his first Christmas, I painted on the text. To keep the paint from scratching off and make the ornament more childproof for the future, I sprayed it outside with a coat of clear spray paint and let it dry completely. I chose a yellow ribbon as a tie just because I liked the way it looked with the aqua - I like a mix of ornament colors and styles so it didn't have to be Christmassy.

Back side