For the Feast of St. Nicholas

I hope everyone is having a blessed Advent!  I meant to finish this post prior to the Feast of St. Nicholas, but last week was very busy for us.  The Feast of St. Nicholas has always been a significant feast for our family.  When the kids were younger, I always selected a new religious Christmas tree ornament for each one of them to give to them on this day.  However, it just became too expensive for me to keep up the tradition, so last December 6 I decided to make my own ornaments to give to the kids.  Each year I plan on altering the design, so they have a variety of ornaments.  (Hopefully my creativity keeps up with that plan.)  I thought I would post this year's ornament in case anyone is looking for similar ideas.

This year I chose a rugged look for the ornaments, and I love how they turned out!  I simply chose a dead branch from our yard, and my husband cut me six circles from it.  I then chose six religious images, sized them to fit the wooden circles, and printed them in color.  After gluing each one to the wood, I covered the entire piece with Modge Podge.  This kept the bark from peeling off the edges and protected the images.  My generous husband then drilled a hole in the top of each ornament through which I strung a piece of embroidery floss, so the ornaments could be hung.  The kids all seemed to enjoy receiving them on St. Nicholas' feast!  I hope you had a wonderful feast day!

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 I also wanted to share some sites whose products I love!  I have not ordered from all of these, but their products seem beautifully made. 

 The first shop is Stella Marigold Art.  They sell beautiful scapulars and well-drawn paper dolls of various saints.  

I also love the product made by Catholic Embroidery.  Last year my husband purchased the beautiful Ave Maria apron for me, and I purchased two of their pouches for other gifts.  All of these products are truly as nice and well-made as they appear on the website.

I recently stumbled upon Lilla Rose.  She sells beautiful hair clips and hairbands.  I would love to buy my daughters each one for Christmas.  I am not sure it will happen this year, but I am definitely keeping them in mind for future gifts.  I know my daughters would love the designs!

Finally while reading Jessica's recent post, I was introduced to these adorable saint blocks.  I love finding Catholic items, and these are another product I think my daughters especially would love!  They would also make great godchildren gifts.  

I hope you find these links helpful.  I will try to add more as I come across them.

God bless!

+JMJ+