Anticlimactic

It seems like it was many days ago when I first told you I had one last little project that I was working on and that I would share soon. Well, somehow, that "little" project grew into the project that was never going to end.

Every year since each of our grand children were born, we have given them an ornament that represented a highlight of their year. The goal was that when they graduated and moved into their own homes, they would take their 20 plus years of ornaments as a start on their own decorations. And, the four oldest are now in apartments of their own and the ornaments are gracing their trees and serving as mini memory books of their lives so far.

There were certainly enough highlights for me to do that again this year (new dog, college graduations, H.S. graduation, sports achievements, etc. ) but....the most memorable thing in any of our lives in 2020 has to be the virus and all of the changes it has brought to our ways of life. And so, I decided that that had to be the ornament for all of them this year. And, since I had the time, I thought I should make them.

Easy enough when it was in my head. I headed over to Pinterest and found a cute gingerbread man with a mask and knew he was the one. Then, I headed out to get the supplies I didn't have on hand.

I drew a pattern and cut them out...and that was where it all started to fall apart. Lol

I don't know if it was that the felt I bought didn't seem as tightly woven as felts of the past but, when I sewed the edges together with a running stitch and tried to stuff the bodies, some of the stitches pulled through the felt. I didn't have enough felt to start over - nor did I want to - so, I went back and did a blanket stitch around the edges and was able to catch some of the holes even though I'm not 100% happy with how it looks.

Then came the embellishing. I won't bore you with all of the details, but finding a glue that worked on the "fluffy" felt was almost impossible. I wanted to use FabriTac but it quickly soaked into the fabric and wasn't totally successful. Tacky glue was of no use! I had to resort to hot glue for some of it and, let's just say that it is IMPOSSIBLE to get small amounts of hot glue out of the glue gun that I have. I resorted to squeezing out globs of glue on my silicon mat and then using a toothpick to place the glue. That kind of worked but dried way too quickly and produced so many "webs" of glue that everything near me was stuck together.

And then, let's not even talk about the eyes - well, maybe for just a second. I had some black glass beads that I thought would work and I figured I would sew them on to avoid one more glue debacle. But, the beads were all different thicknesses and sizes and needed about four tacks per eye to hold them down anywhere near flat.

And, the list of "challenges" really does go on. I truly wasn't sure I would ever get them done but, finally, they are! If you look closely, you can see all sorts of disasters but I figure for 2020, it's just par for the course.

Any way, I thought I would show you how they came out if you have been on the edge of your seats for a week anticipating what wonderful idea I had come up with! Lol

The kids will love them and that is all that matters.

I'm off to clean up what looks like every craft supply I own spread all over the table. And then, I have only one more batch of cookies and then the popcorn mix I always make and I will be finished with all of that. I haven't wrapped the first gift but I love doing that sitting by the fire watching a Christmas movie so maybe that will be on the agenda this evening. Stay safe and stay tuned.

P.S. As I was just looking at these I thought they might look cute with something in their hands. At first my mind went to a small candy cane or wreath but then the idea of a roll of toilet paper hit me. How apropos, right? I'm going to think about that and I will let you know what I come up with. Stay tuned.