Amanda's Blog

I got this great idea from a deals blog that I follow, Hip2Save.  I love this site and there is no telling how much it has saved us. (Josh may think it has cost us b/c I do tend to get wrapped up in a good deal, even when I don’t need it, but I choose to focus on the savings:)  Anyhow, I found this cute idea for time capsule ornaments, and I am so excited about doing them every year (well, at least we did the first year; we will have to see if I even remember or find time to do it next year…ha!)  They were really kid friendly, too!

All you need are some plastic ornaments that will open up (I got mine from oriental trading),

 paper to write on to put inside (we used cut up tissue paper so it would be prettier),stickers to decorate the outside, a picture of your child, and ribbon to make it prettier and hang it on the tree.

The instructions are simple…write the kids favorite memory on the paper and put them inside the ornament.  Then you can decorate the outside however you or your child would like.  We chose to put their names and ages in stickers. (If I weren’t so OCD, I would have let them put the stickers on themselves…but I really wanted them to be straight…I did let Austin do his own, but only with thorough instruction on how to get it perfectly  almost centered:)

I have plans to put a picture of each child in the ornament soon sometime!  It may go the way of all the other picture ornaments that I have bought since having 2 or more children (why do they have to make the frames such odd sizes!!!).  You are now ready to put a pretty ribbon through the hole at the top of the ornament (don’t know what that is called…) and hang it on your tree!!

I look forward to doing this every year (I hope) and then looking at their favorite things/firsts from each year as we decorate the tree each year.  This was also a very inexpensive craft and as I mentioned before, the kids loved it!!  We also used the plastic ornaments and supplies to just make pretty ones to put on the tree or give as small gifts.  It was fun to get creative with these.

Oh, and here is what Caleb did during the ornament making:)