2 years ago, my friend Amy and I tackled the task of creating homemade Christmas ornaments with our kids, then 15 and 8 months old. We dipped the kids’ hands in white paint and put their handprints on red Christmas balls – the hands were only semi-legible but they were totally cute. I used a metallic Sharpie marker to write Lily’s name and the year on the back of the ball and we distributed our craft to the grandparents, aunts, etc.
Last year we made plaster of paris snowflakes, complete with silver glitter on the front.
So this year we were on the hunt for a simple but different ornament to attempt.
We chose cinnamon applesauce dough ornaments!
Makes: Around 2 dozen ornaments – this will differ slightly depending on how thin you roll the dough.
You will need:
- 1/4 cup white glue
- 1/3 cup applesauce
- 3 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 1/4 cup water
- cookie cutters
- string or ribbon (about 10 inches of ribbon per ornament)
- optional: glitter to brush on front of ornaments
How to make:
- Preheat oven to 300 F.
- Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until dough forms.
- Knead the dough into a ball, adding more flour as necessary to eliminate the stickiness.
- Roll out dough to desired thickness on a flat, floured surface.
- Create your ornaments by pressing cookie cutters into the dough.
- Place ornaments on ungreased baking sheet.
- Use a toothpick to poke a hole in the top of each ornament so that you can stick a ribbon through for hanging.
- Bake ornaments for 7 minutes at 300 F.
- After ornaments cool, feel free to decorate with glitter. (Works best if you brush ornaments with a very light coat of glue (like Elmer’s) and then sprinkle with glitter.
- Put a string through each hole and tie ends together for tree hanging.
- I always write Lily’s name and the year on the back of our ornaments with a permanent marker so that years from now we can keep our homemade ornaments straight.
- Hang ornament(s) on your tree or give as gifts!
p.s. The cinnamon makes the ornaments smell great! Feel free to add nutmeg and/or cloves to your dough for even more fragrance.
