Christmas Project #1 - FINISHED

I finished project #1.  It was a royal pain to track down the foam core circle that I wanted to use.  Craft Warehouse was totally out.  The dollar store by my house was out.  I finally ended up at Hobby Lobby, where they had ONE left, and then I had to stand in line for 40 minutes because, even though it was CYBER Monday, there were still a million people out and about. 

In case you want to make your own.....first, go find a round foam core.  And ornaments.  You will also need a glue gun.  I found my ornaments at Walmart - I know. Don't judge.

 Second, take all of the metal tips off of the large ornaments. Press/screw them into the foam core, creating a hole. Fill the hole with glue and then replace the ornament back into the hole. Do this all around the foam core.

 Now to be perfectly honest, I WANTED this to be off. I'm trying to not be so.....symmetrical in all that I do, i.e., photos, scrapbooking, hanging pictures, etc. I have decided that while some things look fantastic when organized in a symmetrical fashion, some other things look even BETTER all scattered and in no apparent order. I decided to try that here.  While I stuck with a general pattern, I really tried to mix it up.

After you attach all of the large ornaments, it's time to dig into the medium size ones. Some of these can fit into the foam core, but for the most part, they will be glued to the large ornaments, or to each other if you are grouping some together. Again, I really had to tell my brain to NOT do a pattern of dark blue, light blue, silver, repeat, repeat. It killed me at first to have two dark blues touching each other. OCD? Maybe a touch - but hey, I'm trying!

 And once you are satisfied with the placement of all of the medium ornaments, it's time to move to the small ones. These are more like fillers - to fill in the gaps, cover any of the metal tops from the medium size ornaments, etc. Group them together....spread them out. Whatever is most eye-appealing to you. And you don't have to use ALL of the ornaments.  I did, but I also had lots of gaps to fill....since I wasn't being symmetrical and all.  ;)

 Ta da!

 And I tied a silver ribbon around what I deemed to be the "top", and I will hang it in my house when I do all of my Christmas decorating soon.