How To Make Homemade Ornaments – Easy Recipes
These easy recipes for homemade ornaments are fun gifts to make, easy on the budget and great to receive!
By Lois Breneman, Heart to Heart Newsletter, jhbreneman@juno.com
HOMEMADE APPLESAUCE – CINNAMON ORNAMENTS
- Pour equal amounts of applesauce and ground cinnamon into a bowl and mix well into a dough.
- Roll out and use cookie cutters to cut stars, gingerbread men, etc.
- Insert a small hook from the jewelry department of a craft store into top of each ornament (or a paper clip or ornament hanger will do).
- Let dry on wax paper for a few days, turning over every morning and night.
- When dry (3-5 days depending on temperature and humidity), use white craft paint to add “frosting” accents.
These make great homemade ornaments and should have a scent even next Christmas, if you store them in plastic zip lock bags. After many years when they lose their scent, cinnamon oil can be rubbed over them to perk up the fragrance.
HOMEMADE SALT CERAMICS ORNAMENTS
1 cup salt
1/2 cup cornstarch
3/4 cup water
food coloring
Mix well and heat until mixture thickens. Roll into ball and chill. When cold, roll out mixture about 1/4″ or a tiny bit thinner. Cut into cookie cutter shapes. Place on wax paper-lined cookie sheets. Decorate with glitter, beads, sequins, poster paints, nail polish, old jewelry, felt, another color of ceramic dough or any scraps. Be sure to make tiny holes with a large needle for hanging or insert a paper clip while wet.
This recipe makes wonderful homemade Christmas ornaments that last for years if packed away carefully in a cool, dry place. I have some homemade ornaments that I made which will soon hang on our tree for the 40th year – still in great condition!
My favorites are gingerbread men, hobby horses, Christmas trees, angels, sleighs, bells. A candy cane can be made by twisting two “snakes” together with the colors already mixed into the dough. The pastel colors in mine didn’t even fade. An ornament is nice to give to friends. Everyone loves an unexpected gift! A box of these handmade ornaments makes a nice wedding gift, since most newlyweds don’t have ornaments when they get married.
photo by: lovelihood
I done the applesauce and cinnamon ornaments before. Those are fun. This recipe for ceramic ornaments looks like fun! Maybe we can make these too! My little ones can make gifts with these! What fun!
Thank you for sharing!
The cinnamon ornaments smell good enough to eat, but don’t! They don’t taste good! I made a few that looked like cookies, intending to put them on a plate and scent my living room Chritmasy. A friend came over, and spying them snatched one up. I explained it wasn’t cookies but to make the room smell good. He gave me a look that said “That’s a ridiculous explanation. You’re just saving them, and I’m having one!” He took a bite and it looked like his mouth turned inside out!
He swears to this day that I forgot the sugar. He just can’t wrap his head around the idea that they weren’t cookies but a type of potpourri ornament! Lol!!!
That is too funny. Bet he listens to you next time.
Those cinnamon ornaments smell so good. I made them last Christmas and gave a few to an older woman from Church who is in her middle 80′s and she just loved them. They reminded her of her childhood and her mother’s handmade christmases.
Do you let the salt ceramic ornaments just dry at room temperature? Thanks for sharing – will be making these this weekend with the grandkids.
Yes you do.