Repairing and refurbishing

 

 Does this happen at your house?  It invariably does at ours.  Whether we are decorating the Christmas tree in December, or taking it down in January, we seem to always find an ornament or two that needs repair.  This year I decided that before I made any new Christmas ornaments or projects, I would refurbish the old ones that I just tend to forget about fixing.  Above you see the damaged ones.  We also had several ornaments that didn't have adequate hangers, so I just didn't use them.  I decided to take care of those at this time also.  

The above ornament is a little tree I made using an idea from Gooseberry Patch.  I wound embroidery floss around mini spools, added button "ornaments" and a star charm at the top.   This year I found that one of the green spools had become detached,  as you can see in the top photo.

The ornament below is one I had purchased from an Etsy shop in a previous year.  The silver chenille stem that edges it had become separated from the ornament.  Hot glue quickly fixed that, but I'm not sure it will last.

The patchwork ornament you see below was made with a styrofoam ball, fabric scraps, and lace.  One pokes the fabric scraps into the foam ball using a nail file.  This ball was missing its hanger and also one scrap of fabric.  It was a pretty simple matter to find a new scrap and add it in, along with a ribbon hanger.

The ornament below has great sentimental value for me.  I can remember sitting on the floor, taking time to create this while a toddler and baby played around me.  If I was doing this now, I would not make it pink, but probably shades of green.  However, the pattern called for pink and I had pink, so I went with it.  

The hanging loop had come out of this one.  I had to just create another loop at the end, because the thread that forms the hanging loop is what holds the ornament together.  As this ornament hangs on the tree, air currents will move the bell clapper and the bell itself.  Even though I'm no longer crazy about the color, I love this ornament and want to commemorate the time and trouble I took to make it.

The Hallmark ornament below is one I bought in Idaho on a clearance sale.  I love it but needed to add a hanger.  This will be perfect at our camp this coming Christmas as we go to great lengths to keep mice out!

A better view of the interior of the "cookie cutter" is below.

The three ornaments below were freebies from Country magazine back in the 1990s, I think.  They just needed hangers, so I added thin red ribbon.  These are pewter-like and quite heavy.  The one below is from 1999 and features a tree in a pickup truck.

A festive horn is below.

The last one is very hard to see.  I took two photos but couldn't get a good one.  It's a rural mailbox (my favorite!) with a cardinal atop and fields, farm and houses in the background.

It feels great having this little project taken care of.  In reality, it was just a few minutes with a glue gun and a few other simple supplies,  but it was so encouraging to me!