How N&T Nieting ornaments Ended Up on My Workbench

The box showed up on the front porch in the first week of November, and I will be honest: it sat on my workbench for three days before I opened it. I am Wren Hollister, retired school librarian, and I have been cutting and painting wood ornaments out of a converted one-car garage for about six years. I have learned to be suspicious of anything that promises a whole holiday project in one package. This one was different. It was a box of N&T NIETING wooden ornaments, 27 unfinished 4-inch tree cutouts, and it turned out to be exactly what I did not know I needed.

I sell wreaths, ornaments and small signs at two church craft fairs every year, and I give most of the rest away to family. My daughter Josie lives in Asheville, and every December she gets a box of whatever I have been testing. So I am picky about blanks. A bad blank makes a bad ornament no matter how careful you are with the paint. I have burned plenty of scrap plywood learning that lesson, and I would rather save a reader a wasted weekend than sell them anything.

Inside the N&T NIETING box were 27 pieces: nine different tree styles, three of each. They are cut from natural wood, sanded well enough to take paint, and each one comes with a length of twine for hanging. The product style is rustic, which suits a workshop like mine. I set all 27 out on the folding work table in rows and just looked at them for a while. That is the part of the job I never get tired of, the moment when a stack of plain pieces starts to look like a plan.

Here is what I learned in the first hour. Because they are unfinished, they take paint and ink beautifully. I tried three different treatments on the same tree style before I found one I liked, and I did not have to drive anywhere for a single extra blank. Twenty-seven pieces in one box meant I could experiment the way I actually like to experiment: with the radio on, the window vent fan running, and no one waiting on me.

That is the real argument for buying unfinished ornaments instead of finished ones. A finished ornament is somebody else's idea of what a Christmas tree should look like. These are my idea. I can leave them bare, paint them to match the mantel, or hand them to a neighbor's grandkid with a bottle of craft paint and no instructions at all. The wood is the start of the project, not the end of it, and for someone who has spent six years making things by hand, that is the whole appeal.

Twenty-seven pieces in one box meant I could try nine different finishes on the same tree shape without driving to the craft store for a single extra blank.

I painted some, engraved a few, and left a handful bare because the natural wood is nice enough to stand alone. The twine that comes with each piece is nothing fancy, but it does the job, and it saved me from rummaging through my ribbon bin for the hundredth time. I hung a finished row on a length of twine across the workshop window and let them cure for a day before I did anything else with them.

Now the honest part, because every review needs one. A few pieces had rough edges that needed a quick pass with fine sandpaper before they would take paint evenly. None of them were ruined, and it cost me maybe twenty minutes total, but you should know these are blanks, not finished ornaments. That is the trade you are making. Unfinished means you get to make them yours, and it also means you do a little of the work yourself.

I took a dozen of the painted ones to the first craft fair, and they sold before lunch. The rest went into Josie's box and onto our own mantel. Dale, who has opinions about most things, said the plain ones looked like something you would pay too much for in a catalog. I took that as a compliment.

By the time December rolled around, I had used every piece in the box. That is rare for me. Most blanks sit on a shelf until I find a use for them. These did not get the chance, and I mean that as the highest praise I know how to give a box of wood.

If I ordered another box tomorrow, I would do two things differently. I would sand everything before I painted anything, not just the pieces that felt rough. And I would buy a second box so I did not have to choose between the craft fair and the mantel. Those are small complaints. They did not cost me a single ornament.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you are thinking about a box of N&T NIETING ornaments, here is what I would tell you over coffee. Buy them if you like doing the finishing yourself. They are a blank canvas, not a finished product, and that is the whole point. Sand the rough ones first, use a decent sealer, and give the paint time to cure before you hang them. And do not be precious with them. The best ornament I made this year was the one I nearly threw away, the one where the paint went on crooked and I fixed it with a second coat and a little patience. That is what these are for.