Silhouette Ornaments

I am so excited with what I just did!

I have been trying to think of ideas for DIY ornaments I can do for our children each year for Christmas. I finally found a beautiful idea on Pinterest of a silhouette ornament on a glass ball ornament.

It was a white glittery ball with the silhouette mod podged onto it. I decided to do my own twist on it....

I am too lazy and frugal to go out and buy more glass ornaments (I also am afraid of years down the road not being able to find the same kind every year). So I decided to make them from scratch!

Salt dough is the easiest stuff in the world to make ornaments with. Plus they will have that homemade feel to them.

The salt dough recipe I used is:

1 cup salt

2 cups flour

1 cup luke warm water

That makes a whole bunch though. So if you are only making a few ornaments at a time like I did, cut down the amounts. A lot.

I ended up using: 

1/4 cup salt

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup water

And even this was too much. It ended up making 4 ornaments when I only needed 2 this time. Just so you have an idea of how much it will make.

I forgot to start taking pictures until after they were cooked, so stay with me here....

I rolled out the dough and used one of our normal drinking glasses as a cookie cutter. This way they can all be pretty much the same every year. Then I used a straw to cut the hole for the string.

I stuck them in the oven at 200 degrees for between 45-60 minutes, all the while checking on them since it's unpredictable depending on how thick you make them and what not.

During this time I took a profile picture of Tanner and loaded it up to my computer. I also found a picture of this time last year that was a perfect profile as well. THAT was a miracle.

I put on a movie that I know he likes and waited until he was sucked into it to snap the picture so he wouldn't move. I'm sure treats or someone being goofy in front of him would work too.

The picture above I'm pretty sure I remember Kollin entertaining him somehow.

Since we don't have a printer that works at the moment, I traced the silhouettes right off my computer screen onto baking parchment I have (it's pretty much trace paper). I held up the drinking glass to the screen over the pictures to size them correctly. I also added his fohawk from another picture for the 2012 one. I may even do it this way in the future whenever we do have a printer. It took out one whole step!

Then I cut them out and traced them onto the ornaments with a pencil.

With a small brush I went around the outline with black acrylic paint so I could get all of the little details and not fudge it up. Then filled in the head with a larger brush.

And then the opposite with baby blue (or any contrasting color) on the outside and back of the ornament. I made sure to really go over all the little nooks and crannies really well since it is pretty much impossible to get salt dough smooth. Ok, so I'm sure you can with sandpaper or something, but I opted for a more natural look.

After they were good and dry I wrote his name and the year onto the back of the ornaments with a skinny Sharpie.

Then added ribbon through the hole to hang, and wha la!

I am SO happy with how they turned out. I really could have made the 2012 silhouette smaller so his hair wasn't in the hole, but by the time I realized it was too big I was done with all the tracing and cutting of tiny details. I still think it turned out cute though.

This will be so fun to do this every year for all of our kids and be able to see the little changes in them as they grow!

Gobble Gobble

We had a great Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Richens' house!

All the cousins had lots of fun with all the toys they had. They have one of those marble sets that your set it up and drop a marble in the top and watch it go to the bottom. Tanner loved it.

And of course dessert  was a hit! All the boys loved the chocolate pie and ice cream.

1 Year

Happy 1 year anniversary to my love! 

It is so strange to say "one year" when all that we've been through it seems like MUCH longer (in a good way). 

 

I wanted to type out the whole 1 year, 12 months, 365 days, 52 weeks, 8765.81 hour.... thing with everything we've done this year. 

 

But I'm drawing a blank.

 

It is so nice to have such a calm year for once! 

 

They say the first year of marriage is the hardest. 

 

I beg to differ! 

 

I think our first year of marriage has been the easiest year that we have been together. BY FAR. 

 

I couldn't ask for a better friend, husband or father. 

 

I still can't believe I'm finally yours. 

 

I love you so much sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode. Thank you for being stuck with me.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Mother Nature decided to dump on us over these past few days. 

I think we've gotten more snow just now than the entire winter last year!

Some places got over 32 inches (Bountiful)! *thank you lake effect*

We got about 6 inches (West Jordan).

 Cottonwood Heights got about 2 feet.

Tanner still isn't so sure about it, but I'm sure that will change soon.

He's all set to help Daddy when the next storm hits too!

Eensy Weensy Spider

21 Months Old

Our little guy is almost 2!

We've had some fun little adventures these last few months.

He is now sleeping in a toddler bed. That is so sad! We weren't planning on putting him in one until another baby came along and needed the crib. At least if that happened around 2.5 years old. But he has turned into a monkey and climbs just about anything he can. Especially the bars of his crib, so we put that to an end quickly.

He finally graduated from a rear facing infant seat to a big boy toddler front facing car seat. It seems like he's liking it so far. It hasn't made much of a difference with him being ornery in the car but at least it is easier to hand him things and point things out to him through the windows.

He is getting pretty good at throwing little temper tantrums. I thought I had a few more months until we hit the terrible two's? They're really not that bad though. He's still pretty mellow and I've seen way worse in other kids before. (this is NOT a challenge though dude)

He is saying more words, but still mostly babble. His favorite word right now is "no."

He is now wearing size 5 shoes, 12 month shirts and 9-12 month pants.

We love you Silly Face!

xoxo

Mommy and Daddy

This is Halloween

At first we weren't planning on taking Tanner trick-or-treating this Halloween since we didn't think he would enjoy it.

Earlier in the day we got all dressed up and went to Grandma Stark's work and went trick-or-treating with her. Tanner absolutely loved it! He was so cute walking up to the different desks, taking a piece of candy and putting it right into his bucket.

So we decided to go to just a few houses up in Grandma and Grandpa Cannon's neighborhood since we were going to go hang out with them anyway. 

Clark, Megan and Andrew showed up so we all went together along with Aunt Becky and Grandpa.

Just a few houses turned into 2 whole blocks! Tanner had so much fun and we just loved watching him.

There was one house we went to that freaked him out though. The person that answered the door had a scary clown mask on and he didn't even want to take a sucker (which are his favorite) from the bowl. He refused to take his eyes off the scary clown and I don't even know if he noticed the candy.

The next 5 or 6 houses after that he wasn't happy about me putting him down in front of the door until someone answered it and it wasn't a scary clown. He eventually got over it and was all over going and getting candy and trying to walk into random people's houses.

He came home with quite the haul of candy (for Mom and Dad)!