Monday, December 6, 2010

Holiday Traditions - FIAR Ornament Exchange

Another fun tradition that we have done for more years than I can remember is to participate in the annual FIAR Christmas Ornament Exchange!  For several years I organized this huge exchange but this year another fabulous FIAR mama took on the challenge of organizing around 100 families from all over the globe so we all could enjoy a little Christmas cheer in our mailbox, FIAR style. :)

The ornaments range from FIAR themed to whatever the kids felt like making this year but all ornaments received are so appreciated. We have loved to create our own and look forward to our new ones arriving in the mailbox.

With my kids getting older this ornament exchange thing has gotten a lot easier on me.  They come up with the plan and do the whole thing. I simply make sure they have the supplies they'll need on hand to complete their project on time. Gotta love that!

This year, A. wanted to do an ornament based on one of the books from FIAR Vol. 4, The Pumpkin Runner.

A. is a great artist and came up with the idea of drawing the last picture in the book that shows Joshua and his dog from behind in silhouette. After drawing the image she cut out pumpkin shapes from card stock, colored them to look like pumpkins and attached her picture to the pumpkin. I laminated them, she punched a hole, threaded gold thread through the hole for a holder and voila! Our Pumpkin Runner ornaments were a fait accompli! :)

Front of ornament

 Back or ornament 

A. with her completed ornaments

 E. R and J joining in on the fun

Here are the ornaments we've received so far from our FIAR friends.  We'll be getting a total of 8 this year and we almost have all of them. Yay!

 

The ABC Bunny from Ohio

A Snowflake Bentley would be proud to look at under his scope from Ohio

Harold's Purple Crayon from Costa Rica

Hanna's Cold Winter from Illinois

another Hanna's Cold Winter, this one from Ohio!

Thank you to all your fabulous FIAR Mama's. We love our new ornaments and can't wait for our last three to arrive. :)


3 comments:

Jen U. said...

Sooo cool! A did a great job on your ornaments. We did ornaments for Owl Moon this year. ;-)

Leslie said...

Love the Pumpkin Runner!!! Did she draw each one?! Great job!!!

We just did our swap yesterday. I love it too. I'll have to post pictures soon.

Loved seeing your tree and all of your ornaments.

Hugs
Leslie

Linda said...

Thanks Leslie and Jen. I love watching A. create. :)

Leslie, she didn't draw each one. She did all the pumpkins separately, so they are all one of a kind ;) but the actual pumpkin runner drawing, she only made one and then I copied it. As it turned out, it worked much better this way. Her original drawing is much larger and when I copied it to get multiple drawings on a page it automatically shrunk it down to ornament size! I was so happy to see that we weren't sending out huge ornaments again this year. LOL After I copied her picture she cut it out and attached it to the pumpkins, then I laminated them and off they went. :)

I'd love to see your ornaments. They are always so amazing. Once HSB is up and running again, let me know when you get it posted! :)

Jen, make sure you post a picture of your Owl Moon. :)