Another Christmas Peek - My first Ornaments

Would you believe our tree is bare? It's positively naked at this point - scandalous! :) We'll likely summon the energy to at least string a ton of lights tonight, but the ornament hanging will take time as we have many traditional and new "last year bargain" ornaments as my mother is quite the collector. But I digress. Here is a peek - only a peek mind you, I have soooo many pictures and so many ornaments to show you and to post on Etsy.
Here is a peek at a pathetic attempt to show you what a tree might look like if you buy most of my ornaments. (And here's where I'll give you, my special readers a deal, if you like what you see in this post and/or on Etsy and decide you must grab as many or even all as you can, I will make you a deal to buy them in a large batch and ship for FREE). Shhh...it's for my readers, you dear ones that keep me going. Now on to the pic:

Now, by this small pic you might think, they are all the same, they are what we've seen before framed, mounted, It'll be boring. Well, one, you'd be wrong, I saw a lovely pic from Country Living last year, maybe? And someone just covered their tree with all the framed silhouettes they had in the house it seemed and the effect of all silhouettes was too cool, the heavy looking frames didn't look natural to a tree and looked like it would be cumbersome. So, I thought - oh, I must make silhouette ornaments and started in the summer. And well...got distracted didn't I? So I have some that are a lady on one side, a gentleman on the other, likely engaged/marriage silhouettes made for them. Little love trinkets they kept. And I loved them, painted them on the vintage French text paper, and on the vintage music paper. A two sided version of the paired silhouettes I sold framed. No need to give a pic of that here.

Then I wanted to tell little stories to myself as I did them - this is a young woman who is silhouetted on vintage French text, on the other side a look of a post card - the Eiffel Tower and stamped as if posted back home to her loved one(s). How sentimental. But then I get sentimental this time of year.

Another story (and an example of other views you will see of every ornament I post - in natural light on a dark background so you can better make choices)...in this one a family got their silhouettes made. Proud Papa and his young son.

Proud mother, her hair carefully adorned and her young daughter. May the children of that age grow to be adults and have families of their own. Reading the Lincolns (Abraham and Mary Todd, obviously) these reminded me of them - maybe they had other children that died - maybe these children died soon after. Oh, now I get sad and start to lose the Christmas cheerfulness and yet it reminds me of women and men dressed gaily for the holidays with pine boughs and spiced punch and kids peeking down over the staircase.


Then I went in a totally different direction - all of these are on the tree in the first pic - they don't look so varied til you get close up, do they? I ALWAYS want my ornaments to look good on both sides, by the way, ornaments have a tendency to twist and turn their backs to us, though my mother (finally an elf that helped me) strung these with such nice ribbon and so well that they don't have that tendency...that might be sad, or maybe you'll flip them around yourself when you view your tree or change it day to day...oh, the possibilities...)

This is a stamp I got at a GREAT and I do mean GREAT Estate sale. And would you believe I hadn't used it yet?? Bought it the same time of other great stamps, but just didn't get to it. This chair reminds me of going to the St. Louis Art museum and also the Napoleonic exhibit I loved so much last year. The chair is gorgeous to me and when my mother saw it she said she'd buy it off of me - she loved it on the spot. I promised to make her just one more ornament for her later - every effort right now I must post.

Also, the background, my first use of it, tinier writing, even more realistic than maybe the French text one I have. The backing: a tribute to Napoleon and the beautiful things I saw there: they replaced the monarch's Fleur de lis with a bee and crown. Oh, you should have also seen Josephine's dresses or examples of, too they had - the style - so elegant!!

And that's all for your little peek. I'm posting them a little at a time.

****Also...important note: some ornaments, a great deal, are sold separately. Some in pairs, one I believe might be in a threesome. Just to warn you when you get ready to buy.

And a second important note: I changed styles AGAIN and if you don't like these antique white or musical papers and have a white or pink tree and like those colors...well, so do I. I only made 2 - that's right 2 pink ornaments (French style, but of course, oui). They are on my little white tree even as we speak and will stay there unless they sell. They will be posted asap, too. And I will blog about that, too. Next year I'll do more, promise, and maybe other colors.

EDIT: I'm dead tired, I'll post my ornaments tomorrow, 'kay? Gotta make dinner and light the tree. Sorry if anyone was waiting to grab one.