Ornaments - Art Elements Design Challenge

I have a lot of plans every year -shortly before or directly after Christmas- what I want to do for the next one. A year seems a long time until... yes, until Christmas surprises me again. Like snow, who would guess it can snow during winter time?!

A long time ago I had a fabulous plan: I wanted to create an ornament every year! Not only for me but for all my family, with the year written on it... and so on and on. I actually did manage one time perfectly, other times only for some, but more often than not: Total failure!

Truth to be told, I am to old to change my habits. Just by planing something it won't function. I need some backup plans to trick myself somehow. Like cleaning up our apartment, my husband and I are often just to damn tired and both o us also often work on weekends.So no regular schedule will work and even if there are people who enjoy to sort and clean, we don't belong to them (we just enjoy a finished clean apartment ;) ).

So, as I said, we are both to old to change habits... so what does the trick? Invite people! Because I actually am able to sort and clean in record time, go to the tiniest spot to find the dust, and so on. After all I work in a genetic lab (one of my "hypothesis" is that there is just a certain amount of tidiness available in me and it is all used up in the lab ;) ) and there I run a nightmare regime (actually all of my former students become as nightmarish in the lab as me! Soooo proud of them all!).

Our apartment is our deeply personal cave, our safe hiding spot of the world and yes, there are very, very few people allowed to see it as it is. This trick works really good for me (not for my husband) even though I know it is a trick.

To come back to the ornaments. If something doesn't work for years, it also probably won't work next time. So my trick is to go away from the same ornament and just experiment with shapes and textures what would actually work to "become" an ornament!

Works wonderful for me! I love to play and experiment (I hate repetition) and after a while I have enough ornaments for christmas presents!

This year I worked with ceramic clay instead of polymer clay and I love them all! I used wooden fabric stamps, fabric lace, and silicone texture baking mats.

Thank you for joining our ornament design challenge this year  and I hope you will have a look at what everyone else made! :)

Guest Designers

Kathy Lindemer

Hope Smitheram

Denise McCabe

Paisley Lizard

Samantha Wescott

Sarajo Wentling

Divya N

Linda Newnham

Melissa Trudinger

Art Elements Team

Susan Kennedy

Caroline Dewison

Laney Mead

Cathy Mendola

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Lesley Watt - Artisan Elements

Lindsay Starr

Claire Fabian (you are here)

Niky Sayers