Creating Christmas Ornaments With Farm Fresh Ephemera

Today I’m sharing my 3rd ornament design for 2013.  I’ve already shown my affinity for creating ornaments with vintage ephemera, as evidenced by my designs from this year, the Bingo stars and Kodachrome slide ornaments.  I so love the nostalgia it evokes, and can think of nothing better than the marriage of nostalgia and Christmas.   Gone are the days of the milkman delivering farm fresh milk to your kitchen Dutch door. Since milk delivery is before my time, I never really gave it any thought that there could be ephemera, from that era, to use in my Christmas designs.  Oh my, have I discovered the plethora of choices for ornaments.   Vintage, unused old stock of milk bottle caps. Gorgeous little works of graphic art, printed on perfect little cardboard circles, just waiting to be immortalized into fun and rustic ornaments. The idea entered my mind when I stumbled onto some vivid red caps on Etsy, and the rest is history. 
Though many milk bottle caps are highly collectible, I purchased batches of several designs and colors I most wanted to create with, so I could craft sets of matching ornaments. I swear, shopping for cap designs started to feel a lot like eating a bag of potato chips. You can never eat just one. Way too many color and picture combinations to choose from, I really had to stop myself from ordering more. So without further ado, here are the designs I created with milk bottle caps, with various materials to accentuate the positive…..

This is the cap that started it all!

I still have many caps to play with, so maybe I’ll make a long garland out of them…..:)