Well, this is spoiling Christmas...

But it's worth it!

In my never-ending quest to save money for the things...(all of them), I decided to knock out my Christmas presents early!

Behold! Leaf ornaments! Or, as I like to call them, lornaments!

Ohhh....Ahhhhh....

I was inspired by a craft fair in Maine, where they were selling leaf ornaments that had been cut out with a cookie cutter and imprinted with paisley patterns. Then...and then...there was glitter. They were selling them for $6 each.

"I can MAKE those!" I whispered to my long-suffering husband, who was being a great sport and had, earlier in the day picked out some yarn color combinations for slippers.

So when this glorious three-day-weekend arrived, off I went to the craft store, where conveniently, I knew one of the cashiers. COUPON!

I bought three colors of polymer clay (Sculpey III), some clay tools ($1.99), GLITTER (specifically made for polymer clays, which came in six colors!) and some sale ribbon. I passed up the patterned stamps.

When I got home, I wandered out into the back yard and found some small-ish leaves in a variety of shapes. 

I rolled out the clay to about 1/4 inch thick, using waxed paper as a table protector. Then GLITTER. At first I applied only one color of glitter...then I realized that these things could be crazy glittery!

Then I rolled a leaf into the clay with a rolling pin covered in plastic wrap. *Note* Do not eat polymer clay, I made sure that nothing I was going to use for food later would touch the clay.

I used my clay tools to cut around the leaf, then removed the leaf and added a hole.

This is what my first batch looked like when I was getting ready to bake them.

FANTASTIC. Here's my first batch:

I'm currently working on another batch that looks like this:

These were faster to make as they didn't have as many fiddly bits at the edges.

So everyone is going to get one of these on their Christmas presents. And people I don't like but have to give presents? They'll just get one of these. A heartfelt, hand made, one-of-a-kind present that lets them know I really (but not really) care.

Lookout, world! Here come lornaments!