We’ve been at it again.  Making Christmas ornaments, that is.  Jeesh, get your mind out of the gutter.  Haha.  This time, I’ve strayed away from glass balls and moved toward polymer clay.  I had one package of white clay waiting to be used.  Christmas is the perfect time, I guess.  I don’t have a real tutorial for these because I was fiddling around while watching Bones one evening.  By the way, is anyone else in love with Booth?  Anyway, I crafted an owl and a penguin.

Then, while browsing Pinterest, I saw a cute polar bear ornament.  Sadly, it had already sold and there wasn’t another like it.  I decided to make something similar.  Once I was happy with the little guy, I bent a piece of wire to make a loop and stuck it in.  Following the instructions on the package, I baked the clay for about 45 minutes.

(I’ll explain the other items soon).

After the ornaments cooled, I started the fun part, painting.  I gave the polar bear a coat of pearl white paint for a little shimmer.  And here’s the crew now:

And on the tree:

Doesn’t the penguin look like Wheezy from Toy Story 2?

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All he needs is a red bow tie.  But, the polar bear is my favorite, despite being wonky and lumpy.

Vincent and Everett love these guys, too.  They pull them off the tree to carry around.  All day.

After crafting a few critters, I moved on to feathers.  Of course, I had more Pinspiration.  I started by rolling the clay thinly on a piece of wax paper.  This was so much easier than peeling it off the table.  Then I cut a feather shape out of the clay and made a few smaller notches for texture.  To make the center support, I rolled a piece of clay into a long, thin strip.  After placing it on the feather, I smooshed it own a little and smoothed it out.

For even more texture, I drew lines with a lead-less pencil, poked a small hole near the top for hanging. To give the faux feathers a more realistic shape, I rolled pieces of aluminum foil and draped the clay over and baked along with the animals.

To finish everything off, I painted two layers of the same metallic pearl paint for extra shimma-shimma.

Total spent: $.98.  And, these are my favorites.  That wraps up all our hand-made ornaments.  How about you?  Have you been working on ornaments?