Ornaments

Well I've been quite absent from here since I was so busy with the holidays...sorry!  Anyways, I'm back now to let you in on my ornaments I did this year.  See, I've kind of made it "my thing" to do ornaments each year for friends and family.  It can be a super simple, easy gift.  This year, I tried a clay-ish dough ornament and then painted them.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1 cup of baking soda
• 3/4 cup water

Mix the ingredients together in a sauce pan (it will look like milk) and stir constantly with the burner on medium heat.

Stir until it comes together into a ball of dough.

Put the hot dough into a mixing bowl and cover with a damp towel to cool.

When the dough is cool, put cornstarch on the counter and plop the dough out.  Knead it a bit (like bread dough) and roll out with a rolling pin about 1/4 of an inch thick.

Use cookie cutters to cut out your ornament shapes (or freehand with a knife!)  You can also use your scraps of dough again...just knead together, re-roll, and cut out more shapes.  You will also need to punch a hole out of the top (so they can hang from the tree).  You can use a straw...or improvise like I had to do and use the tip of a pen!

Place the cutouts on a parchment paper lined baking sheet or stone.

Bake them for one hour at 175 degrees.  30 Minutes in, turn them over.

Once your ornaments are cooled, you can leave them as is...or...you can paint them!  This is just basic acrylic paint (usually on sale for less than a dollar a bottle).  And...maybe don't paint on the couch -- lol.

Here's what my Christmas tree and ginger bread man looked like!

When you're finished painting them, go over them with a clear gloss.

Once dry, add a cute ribbon or ornament hooks.