Every year I make Christmas ornaments to send out to all my loved ones and to those who played a positive role in my life throughout the year. Last year I made my ornaments out of aluminium cans.

The first step in making these ornaments is dissecting the cans. To do this, I poke a hole in the side of the can at the top just under the section of the can that angles toward the top with an exacto knife. Once this hole is large enough to fit my scissors into it, I use my scissors to cut around the can following the line just below the angled part, removing the top of the can. Then I cut down the length of the can in a straight line. Then I cut the bottom of the can away. This leaves me with flat sheets of aluminium. If the aluminum is curling, one can flatten the sheet by running a ruler over it.

The next step is sanding off the labels. To do this, I use an electric drill with a wire brush drill bit. This can also be done using steel wool.

Then I stain the aluminium pieces with alcohol ink. Alcohol ink can be purchased at most craft stores like Michaels or JoAnn’s Fabrics.

Then I cut out the leaf shapes. To make a poinsettia leaf templet, I just printed a stock photo from the internet.

The final steps are embossing the leaves’ veins and hot gluing the leaves together.

To emboss the leaves, I use an embossing stylus I picked up for a dollar at Blicks. Michaels sells these too, but they are the Martha Stewart brand and cost quite a bit more. Alternatively, pens that do not work or mechanical pencils without the led protruding work as a stylus as well. One should also emboss on a soft surface. I emboss on a foam sheet. However if one doesn’t have a foam sheet, a magazine works just as well.

I just used a hole puncher to punch out the flowers at the center of the poinsettia.

Look at all my handcrafted Christmas cheer!