{"id":5365,"date":"2013-12-02T10:23:54","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T15:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/?p=5365"},"modified":"2013-12-02T21:55:27","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T02:55:27","slug":"handmade-holiday-traditions-our-christmas-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/handmade-holiday-traditions-our-christmas-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Handmade Holiday Traditions: Our Christmas Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t posted in a long, long time! \u00a0It’s been over 2 months!<\/p>\n

I’ve been taking some time to figure out which direction to go\u2026 and well\u2026 I still don’t know.<\/p>\n

But with the holidays here I thought it would be nice to share some of our crafting and traditions because I am so grateful to other bloggers who have shared their traditions as we have been able to adopt a few for our own family. \u00a0Because of their sharing I feel like our lives have become richer. \u00a0So I thought it would be nice to share in return.<\/p>\n

Today it’s a silly, easy project that has literally “stuck” with us for many (maybe too many) years.<\/p>\n

When we were young and first married we needed a topper for our Christmas tree. \u00a0If I’m not mistaken, it was our very first Christmas, living in Maryland. \u00a0I collected a bunch of those Prickly gum balls from the sweet gum trees in our yard. \u00a0It’s been over 15 years\u2026 but I believe I baked them to dry them out and try to kill anything that might be living in them (note\u2026 we’ve never had an issue with anything growing on them so I’m assuming it was either effective or not at all necessary – but I’d probably still do it just to be sure). \u00a0I then simply spray painted them gold and hot glued them together.<\/p>\n

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Over the years I’ve suggested we replace our tree topper star but my husband fiercely vetoes these requests. \u00a0The gum ball star has found it’s place and is “stuck” in our hearts (hehe\u2026).<\/p>\n

It’s been repaired a few times (nothing a little hot glue couldn’t remedy). \u00a0And this year it, once again, graces the top of our tree.<\/p>\n

Maybe you don’t want a gum ball star atop your tree but it is a cute and easy craft for kids decorating outdoor trees or to add to outdoor wreaths if you live in the vicinity of these otherwise annoying seed pods! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Do you have a handmade ornament that has stood the test of time and become one of those special decorations that MUST be put on the tree? \u00a0I’d love to see a picture and hear your story! \u00a0Please share in the comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t posted in a long, long time! \u00a0It’s been over 2 months! I’ve been taking some time to figure out which direction to go\u2026 and well\u2026 I still don’t know. But with the holidays here I thought it would be nice to share some of our crafting and traditions because I am so grateful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[770,767,500,768,769],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas","category-crafts-crafts-and-crochet","category-crafts-and-crochet","category-easy-crafts-for-kids","category-holiday-traditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5371,"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5365\/revisions\/5371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}