Sophisticated and Fun DIY Christmas Ornaments for the Chic Child-at-Heart

With Colorado weather surprisingly remaining in the 60s well into December, it’s been hard to find time to prepare for Santa’s visit — but winter is finally coming to The Canyons™ and its arrival has us feeling festive! To help bolster the holiday spirit, we’ve ventured out into the internet and returned with ideas for elevated Christmas ornaments that are sure to add a touch of grown-up sensibility to this year’s tree. Read on to start taking your hall-decking to the next level!
 
Scrabble Tile O-R-N-A-M-E-N-T
Whether you’re the reigning queen of word games or the fastest crossword solver on the street, there’s one item every book lover’s tree desperately needs: ornaments made out of Scrabble tiles. These bibliophile's delights come together incredibly easily with hot glue, decorative ribbon, and Scrabble tiles. If you’re feeling full of the holiday spirit you could stick to holiday favorites like JOY or HOHOHO, or you could string together the longest possible Scrabble word, OXYPHENBUTAZONE — worth an astronomical 1,775 points — so your guests know what they’re getting into when you pull out the board come Christmas Eve.

Trendy Marbled Ornament
For the past few years loud and marbled patterns have been incredibly trendy. It may be an old tradition with few living artisans — one-of-a-kind marbled paper inside the cover of book was once a marker of its quality, but it's been almost entirely replaced by cheaper methods today. Lucky for you, it’s quite simple to bring these ancient techniques into the present with only nail polish and a cup or bowl that you don’t mind ruining. After dropping a few drops of nail polish onto the surface of some water, you can transform a boring ping pong ball into a charming marbled bauble that wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of a style magazine.

Dye-it-Yourself Ornament
If turning all the kids’ ping pong balls into beautiful marbled ornaments has made you addicted to dyeing, we have another chic project to up the sophistication of your tree. Like paper marbling, Japanese shibori is an ancient tradition that looks a lot like the tie-dyeing that you may already be familiar with. Fabric is tied up, sewn, or pinned and then dunked in a vat of (traditionally) indigo dye. While traditional shibori methods require very specific materials and dye, we’ve found a much simpler method that results in beautiful shibori-style fabric that will bring a scrumptious blue pop to your christmas tree once you’ve wrapped it around an ornament.

An Ornament Good Enough to Eat
America runs on avocado toast, and we can’t say that we’re surprised — it’s really hard to go wrong with a perfectly ripe avocado on a thick-cut piece of warm sourdough bread. Why not celebrate everyone’s favorite breakfast by making an adorable ornament moonlighting as your favorite dish? This felt avocado toast isn’t edible, but it sure is cute — and it may just inspire you to make your way down to the The Exchange Coffee House™, where our very own Chef Greg has brought a gourmet touch with a drizzle of lemon oil and some freshly-cracked black pepper.

With much mistletoe-ing and hearts all a-glowing, we wish you the happiest of holidays. We’re so glad you’ve decided to spend it with us this year — and hopefully for a very long time! If you’re ready to join our friendly and luxurious master-planned community, we’d sure love to have you — reach out and we can’t wait to connect!