Ornament joy

http://craftysisters-nc.blogspot.com/search/label/ornaments
I knew that I wanted to do a "baby Jesus" craft/ornament with the little girls in cousin pre-school so when I found the site (linked above) I knew I had my project.
They had a 3" grapevine wreath as a base and I couldn't find any locally (1/2 way through December) so I decided to make my own. My neighbor graciously let me trim her grape vines and I had the hardest time making the vines bend into wreaths. Could be the cold weather and time of year. Duh.

I even soaked them in the bath tub for HOURS in warm water. I got one wreath and a lot of little sticks. So I made do by taking some fine wire and weaving it around the sticks to make a little raft. The wire let me slightly curve the sides and I came up with a manger. It worked! :) I kind of like it better.

So this is Bree's ornament and how it looked on the tree (until she moved it to the back of the tree- for some reason all of the ornaments she has or likes wound up clustered in the back where she could play with them)

These were so easy to do we made extra and used them for neighbor gifts. The neighbor who gave us the vines got the only wreath one. She is extra special.