How to make your Menlo Park Christmas even nuttier than it already is

Editor’s note: We first profiled Menlo Park resident Alexis Murphy before Valentines Day last year. She’s still busy giving every holiday — and lot of other days of the year — a special stamp, thanks to her creativity, which she chronicles on her blog. Here she talks about how you can turn your family into Christmas ornaments in a very nutty manner.

I am a little nutty and so is my family. I decided to honor them with their very own personalized walnut characterchure ornaments this year.

Want to do the same? You will need:

• Walnuts
• Paint
• Paint brushes
• Ribbon
• Glue gun or strong glue
• Clear spray coating

Paint your walnuts to look like family members,adding special traits that they possess. Once they are painted and dried, spray with a clear (and I used one with a slight gloss) protective coating, let dry, attach a ribbon loop on the back with hot glue, and trim the long ends when dry.

Here is my nutty family (pictured top), including my parent’s beloved Old English Sheepdog, Prudence. My son is not happy that he is the “biggest nut”. I really didn’t do it intentionally!