cinnamon ornaments

We've needed lots to keep us busy the past few weeks because it's been cold and snowy.  While M would like nothing more than to be out in the snow all day everyday, we can't do that with baby G hanging out with us now.  So due to G's laid-back nature we've gotten to try out lots of Christmas projects from gingerbread houses to homemade gifts to these fun ideas...

I think these cinnamon ornaments are one of my favorite holiday activities because they're easy to make and always come out cute. They look baked but they're not. In fact, I made them in school one year because it's that easy. 

1/2 cup cinnamon

1/2 cup applesauce

Mix them to make a dough. Roll it out to about 1/4 inch thickness. I rolled it between a piece of parchment paper and a piece of Saran Wrap. Then use cookie cutters to cut shapes. 

Use a straw to poke holes for hanging then let the shapes dry for at least 24 hours. I kept them uncovered on parchment paper and flipped them halfway through. 

Once they're dry they can be decorated and strung to hang. We broke out the glitter glue and puffy paint for this...

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While we have lots of time for crafts, I have limited blog-writing time, so I'm including a few other Christmas decorations we've made at the tail end of this blog. 

First, the self-explanatory Christmas tree feet:

And a hand tree. Trace their hands, fold the paper and cut 6 or so out at a time. M loved decorating this with stickers. If I had been more on the ball I would have gotten cute ornament stickers.

Merry Christmas from me, M and G!

christmas ornaments 2014

When our kids are grown up it's my hope that we'll have some kind of child-made ornament on our tree from each year they were little.  Until they're in school and they (hopefully) have teachers who will help me with this, I'm on my own.  Miles has this ornament from his first year.  It doubled as the favor from his Baptism.  We made this one (one of my favorites) last year.  I found lots of fun ideas on Pinterest this year but we ended up doing our own thing...

I used Model Magic this year, basically because I have a newborn and I'm not about to mix salt dough. I have to include the disclaimer that I have never used Model Magic for anything that I wanted to last for a long period of time.  I have no idea how this ornament will hold up long term but I did coat it so hopefully it works out.  This ornament is Model Magic rolled into a ball, flattened, and cut into an oval. M then pushed his hand into it to make a hand indentation.  Then I did the same with G's hand over M's.  As I've mentioned here and here and probably various other places, baby handprints are the bane of my crafting existence.  Her hands were not painted.  They made the indentations then I painted over them on the ornament.  No handprints involved in the making of this ornament:

As you can see we also attempted a footprint, that I haven't decided what to do with yet, and M made a red moon in the process.  I also ended up writing "2013" at the bottom of M's hand in gold.  

I also did a ball ornament for G similar to M's from his first year that is linked above.  Quick and easy footprint on a ball with her name and the year written on the other side.  Tip- roll the baby's foot not the ball.  I love that we have two of these now:

Pinterest and Facebook have made late night feedings more fun and I did end up pinning a number of other ornament ideas you might want to check out.  You can find most of them on this board. 

Santa ornaments

These ornaments might be one of my favorite crafts we've done so far.  This is kind of a mom-activity since M really didn't have much of a part except for lending his hand for tracing.  However, I bet older kids could try the painting or at least mix the dough.

This is another salt dough activity.  We used salt dough once before.  You basically need one part salt to two parts flour and then about the same amount of water as salt.  For example:
2 cups flour
1 cups salt
1 cup water*
I ad the asterisk because I usually add the water gradually based on the consistency.  For this I only used a 1/2 cup of flour to a 1/4 cup of salt.  We ended up with three ornaments.

The first step is to trace your child's hand and then cut it out.

Mix the ingredients for the salt dough then knead it until it's mixed.  Roll it out flat and use a sharp knife to cut hands using the traced handprint.  I added the holes using a plastic straw:

Let them bake at a low temperature (we baked them at the lowest temperature our oven would go which was around 200 degrees) for one hour.  I flipped ours once so they baked for 30 minutes on each side.

After they come out paint them so that the four fingers are Santa's beard and the thumb is the long part of his hat.  Add a string to hang it:

I wrote M's name and the year on the back of each.  I want to put something on them to preserve them a bit better but I haven't yet.  This is a super cute gift that doesn't cost much to make.  You could even add little tags to the string.