Tag: Christmas

Remembering Ninja with our 2025 Homemade Christmas Ornament

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When Brandi moved in she brought her black cat, Ninja, with her. I wasn’t too sure about him because I’d never liked cats. With my job working from home, he quickly became my little buddy and turned me in to a cat guy.

Ninja got sick and we lost him at the end of August, which was really hard. 😿 He was such a good kitty! The vet sent us a sympathy card with his paw print.

Since holidays are always a good time to remember, we decided to preserve the card in this year’s Christmas ornament and we’ll always have it. Brandi wants to start learning to use some of the tools in the shop, and she got to use the band saw, scroll saw, and sanders while helping to make the frame.

Check out our previous ornaments from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Christmas Painting

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Instead of playing wacky games this year, Mom had the idea everyone would do a Christmas-themed painting. Lucky for me, I learned a few tricks earlier this year during a work activity. I decided on a snowy night sky with Santa and his reindeer.

Here are all seven works of art.

I looked at the back of the canvas and though the frame was interesting; they interlocked the corner joints to make them stronger.

Christmas Tree Collar

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Several weeks ago Brandi mentioned seeing tree collars advertised a lot. I’d never even heard of them and then I saw a YouTube video showing how to make a hexagon one with fence pickets. Brandi thought it was cool and was game to help. I won’t go in to detail on the process because the detailed video is embedded below. Here are photos from our build.

Getting the sizing right took some time and attaching the hinges was tricky because of the angles. I was surprised how well the lift off hinges separated and went back together.

This was a fun build and it’s much better than the store bought collars. Making a tree collar, however, will not be a yearly tradition for us like making an ornament. haha

Here are Amazon links to the hinges I used:

Homemade Christmas Ornaments – 2023

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After getting married in October, of course we were going to center our ornament around that this year. We took some leftover pieces that didn’t get used for the kitchen backsplash, glued two together, cut it to size, rounded the corners, softened the edges, and added a couple of screw eyes.

We bought two different colors (hard to tell in this photo) of twine and tied a square knot. Obvious symbolism.

After having a Cricut for almost two years, we finally cut vinyl on it.

A little super glue gel to attach the knot.

Then we sprayed three coats of lacquer to help set it and hopefully hold on to the vinyl better.

We also have some bonus ornaments this year. I drilled a hole through one of the golf balls Brandi had made for some twine. The other two were Huichol art we did on our honeymoon in Playa Mujeres. Can you guess who did which one?

Making ornaments is a yearly tradition for us. Check out 2021 and 2022.

Homemade Christmas Ornament – 2022

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Our second Christmas means our second ornament (see 2021). It was a year full of Star Wars, from watching everything in order to building a lot of LEGO sets (The Child). So for this year’s ornament we made a model of a panel that you might find next to a spaceship door.

The main building materials were polystyrene and plastic cement from Hobby Lobby and I already had an assortment of paints (spray cans and acrylics). As we were getting started, I pulled out a bin of random plastic parts we might be able to incorporate, but they were all too big. Brandi asked if we had any extra LEGO pieces. We sure did, so we used some of those.

I forgot to get a picture during the initial assembly, but here’s the piece after a coat of gray primer.

Then it was all about adding colors. The delicate type of painter’s tape was used when masking off areas was needed. Little bits of color here and there made each area stand out.

A few coats of spray lacquer locked in the painting done so far. It looked too crisp and new at that point though. Weathering with acrylic paints was the final step and made it look like a real thing that had been used and abused.

After final coats of spray lacquer we hung it up.

If you’re like to learn how to do panel modeling like this, I highly recommend checking out Adam Savage Demonstrates Miniature Spaceship Paneling or Adam Savage’s One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing and Scratch-Building on YouTube.

Homemade Christmas Ornament – 2021

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Brandi and I are starting a yearly tradition to make an ornament based on something from our year. 2021 was filled with a lot of home remodeling (to her house which is up for sale and our house still being worked on), so I thought it would be neat to make a mini pallet wood wall. It was a team effort and turned out pretty cool.

2018 Holiday Watches

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Each year I tend to watch a lot during the holiday break. This year it started a year and one day after sharing the Ocean’s 8 trailer. I was browsing iTunes movies and rented it as soon as I saw it. Exactly what you’d expect from the Ocean’s movies. Cool that there was some character carryover between the movies too.

On Christmas day I watched a few movies on Hallmark Channel with Mom. All very predictable and heartwarming. They were Christmas Made to Order, It’s Christmas, Eve, and Christmas in Evergreen: Letters to Santa.

When I’m sick, I usually tune in to some type of marathon, because I can fall asleep and not care about missing anything. The Incredible Dr. Pol is a fascinating show about a veterinarian right here in central Michigan. I’ve seen so many calves delivered I’m pretty sure I could do it myself.

I watched CrossFit – Killing the Fat Man – Season 2. Shows the power of the program, especially combined with solid nutrition. Inspired me to try an experiment of my own.

One night I was browsing movies on Netflix and Wind River caught my eye. I liked it and thought it was one of the best Jeremy Renner performances I’ve seen.

Tiger Woods: Return of the Roar on ESPN got me pumped for the upcoming golf season and reminded me how lucky we are to experience this comeback. 2019 could be something very special.

To close out my vacation I watched Mission: Impossible – Fallout last night. I almost went to see it when it was in theaters so it’s been on my watch list for a while. It was enjoyable.

I also watched countless videos on YouTube, but that’s the norm.

You know what I didn’t watch? A single play of college football. It was great.

Busy Holiday Schedule

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My schedule for the holidays this year is busier than usual.

  • Friday – Party in Mount Pleasant with friends.
  • Saturday – White elephant Christmas party at my sister’s house.
  • Sunday – Christmas party with my Dad’s family.
  • Monday – Christmas Eve at my parent’s house. Crab legs for dinner and gift exchange later.
  • Tuesday – Christmas with my Mom’s family.
  • Wednesday – My 28th birthday.
  • Thursday – RECOVERY!

How does your schedule look?