Home Made Christmas Ornaments

A few years ago (in fact it was actually 4 years) ago Emma from She Sows Seeds posted a blog post on how to make Hand Made Dough Ornaments.  At the time I thought they were lovely and went about purchasing the little plastic letters on ebay so we could put writing on the ornaments.  I never got around to making them 4 years ago however Sienna had her friend over today so I planned this Christmas Activity for them.  It's so simple and just requires 3 ingredients a saucepan and a hotplate.

SIMPLE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT DOUGH

INGREDIENTS:-

1 Cup Bi-carb Soda

1/2 cup of cornflour

3/4 cup of warm water

I doubled the recipe so we had enough dough for both girls to make their own ornaments.  

INSTRUCTIONS:-

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a saucepan and then add the warm water and stir.
2. Turn hotplate on to medium heat and just start mixing until the liquid evaporates and forms into a soft dough.  This took about 5-8 minutes of stirring.
3. Leave dough to cool for 5-10 minutes.
4. Then ready to roll out and make your ornaments.

I purchased a small set of Christmas Cookie Cutters for $3.50 from the Reject Shop and we used these.  

Remember to make a hole in the ornament with the end of a thin paint brush so you can hang them up.  We discovered it was best if we left the metal cookie cutter on the dough and put the hole in it while it was still in the shape.  We used a toothpick and moved it around the hole to get rid of any tiny little bit of dough in the hole.  

Once the hole was done we carefully removed the cookie cutter and then pressed some words into the dough.

We rolled the dough straight onto our kitchen bench and then used a thin piece of cardboard to slide the ornament off the bench (a postcard would work perfectly) and then put it onto baking paper (parchment paper).  Once they were cut out they were ready for the oven.

I heated the oven up to 100 degrees and baked them for a little over an hour and turned them over half way. 

You can leave the dough to dry for 24 hrs however I wanted Sienna's friend to take them home with her for her Christmas Tree so I baked them.  They are so easy and it was a great little activity for the girls.

If you didn't have the letters you could even use the end of a pen to hand write something or even a sharpie pen would work too.  Years ago I made some gift tags for Christmas however I used clay but this would also work.  Here's some photos.