FOSAL - January and February Ornaments

My Blue Star Ornament - Submission for February for the FOSAL
I'm all finished it now! I did most of the cross-stitching while watching the winter olympics on Sunday. By Monday night  I was really glad just to be finished cross-stitching and it was quick to stitch up the backing and attach the loop on the sewing machine while watching Good News Week. Mostly it got sewn up in the ads for Good News Week, because it's hard to stitch straight while laughing. I backed it using some blue poplin and used a piece of silver cording as it's loop. I was planning to stuff it with some poly fill, but I liked it flatter so pulled all the stuffing out instead. I used 4 threads of Gutermann metallic silver thread (for sewing machine embroidery) and threaded them together to stitch all the silver cross-stitches as the metallics in the twisted strand embroidery threads were dull and looked grey rather than silver. The 4 silver threads were extremely difficult to manage and tangled easily, sometimes the back looked like an explosion of silver loops but luckily none of the loopiness knotted completely and eventually unlooped and slid through the hole! I especially like how the silver glints and reflects in the light. So here it is...
FEBRUARY Ornament ALL FINISHED:

While I was finishing off the cross stitch on the blue star, I noticed I had lot's of room in the top corner of my embroidery hoop so, to not waste the Aida cloth I stitched up a little snowman ornament to sneak in for late entry for January, (since I wasn't a part of the FOSAL in January) I found the free pattern at craftdesigns4you.com. I reinforced it with some white cotton and a green poplin backing. It was really difficult to turn right-side out and really difficult to hand-stitch up the bottom after turning. The Aida cloth really frays alot (as you can see in the photo below) and induced a decent amount of cursing.

There must be a better way to do this stuff! - Yes I'm all about the easy. Eventually I turned a blind eye to it's faults and I hand stitched it and poked it's wonky backside into submission. I used some multiples of green thread to use as a loop, because I could not work out a way to attach the silver cording nicely. So here it is... JANUARY a little wonky (don't look too closely), but ALL FINISHED:

Now, for thinking about the March ornament...I think I'll go looking for a free bauble pattern and make it up in either green and silver or purple and silver.