Homemade Christmas Ornaments

Lily and I had a lot of fun making "clay" Christmas ornaments this year.  We just finished up our last batch the other day and Jesse was like "how many ornaments are you going to make?" ;o)  But we're done now... the bottom branches of the tree are sagging because those are the only ones Lil likes to decorate.  And we have gobs to mail to family for next year.  Cause what grandparent doesn't want dorky ornaments all over the place?

We used this recipe from The Woodside Kitchen and I didn't need to tweak it very much.  I will say that you need to roll it thick to prevent curling.  And if you want vibrant colors, you need to use high quality gel food dyes.  

LJ really enjoyed being mostly in charge of the stirring process.  Once it cooks on the stove you let the dough cool for a bit, then roll it out and stamp out your ornaments.  I will recommend rolling it onto parchment paper or a silicone mat so you can leave the ornaments where they are and just peel away the extra dough.  I do this with my sugar cookies, too.  Much easier.

I really liked that the leftover dough could be stored in the fridge for later use.  So one day we did red, then green, then we used the leftovers from both to make multi-colored creations.  We stamped designs onto them, which was fun.  The recipe says you can also paint them... lots of interesting suggestions in the comments.  We used curling ribbon and twine to hang them on the tree.

They certainly aren't going to last forever or be family heirlooms... but they're a cute kiddie craft.  And they're super cheap so even if/when they break it's not going to make me cry or anything!  One batch alone gets you about 20 ornaments, depending on size.  And we did about three batches this season!

I have a secret wish that I'll have two trees next year.  One big, to decorate as usual, and one little... to make the "kid tree"... strung with magical hand-crafted kid ornaments and popcorn garland.  We'll see if I actually do it.  But that's the dream!

I think this might be my last Christmas post... sniff sniff... How many more days till next Christmas???