Holiday Kid Craft: How to Make a Portrait Ornament

When my kids were young, handcrafted portrait ornaments were a fairly standard make-it-at-school Christmas gift for the parents. They were usually made of bits of fabric and ribbons, painted puzzle pieces and buttons all glue stick'd to a cardboard backing with the child's class photo stuck smack dab in the middle. As the kids grew older, portrait ornaments gave way to ping pong snowmen, light bulb Ruldolphs, and petrified gingerbread men, all very cute naturally but none having the staying power of a Life Touch photo smashed in the middle of a yarn wrapped paper plate.

There is something about a portrait ornament that turns a Christmas tree into a family scrapbook. Unwrapping an 10 or 15 year old school picture brings back school memories and funny stories and lots of "remember whens," the very stuff that family gatherings are made of. We'd laugh at the goofy expressions and the preponderance of glitter and listen to the same story year after year of how "Bobby in the first grade sat on my ornament and it stuck to his pants which is why it's torn along the side there and had to be mended by Mrs. L." I was quite sad when those tiny class photos disappeared from the repertoire of handcrafted kid's gifts.