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!

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.