Posts Tagged ‘christmas ornaments’

Make Your Own Holiday Dough Ornaments


With daily schedules bursting at the seams, decorating your home for the holidays can seem like just another chore on your to-do list. Although it may seem quicker and easier to buy your ornaments at your local discount store, consider clearing some time in your schedule to make your own holiday ornaments.

You’ll find that the time spent creating your unique holiday creations will be well spent. Christmas Family Ornaments

Here’s a recipe for making your very own Dough Ornaments. It’s simple, fast, and very expensive. More importantly, they are fun to make with family, and you will love the sight of them hanging from your Christmas tree!

Homemade Dough Ornaments

For the dough mixture, you will need:
4 cups of flour
1 cup of water
½ cup of salt
Food Coloring bottles (optional)
Cookie Cutters (optional)
2 cups ground cinnamon (optional)

For decorating your ornaments:
Ribbon
Acrylic paints and brushes
Glitter, Stickers, Stamps, Etc.
Clear protective paint sealant

Mix the dry ingredients together, and then add water. If you’d like, you can add food coloring to your dough mixture. You may want to mix up several batches of different-colored dough, or you can plan on decorating your ornaments later with acrylic paints.

For an extra special treat, mix two cups of ground cinnamon into your dough mixture. Your ornaments will be tinged with a wonderful cinnamon scent! Carolers Figurines

If your dough mixture feels too sticky, add more flour. Knead the dough until it is smooth and stiff. Use a roller pin to flatten out the dough. Once the texture is smooth and consistent, use cookie cutters to cut out different shapes. You can also shape the dough into a design of your own.

If you used food coloring to create batches of different-colored dough, now’s the time to get creative. For example, if you’ve mixed up a small batch of red dough and another batch of regular-colored dough, you can create candy cane decorations. Simply create one batch of red colored dough, and leave aside a portion of regular dough. Then flatten out the dough and cut out two long strips from each batch. Intertwine the two strips to create candy cane decorations!

Once all the dough has been shaped, use the tip of a pen or straw to make a small hole at the top of each of your ornaments. Then place them on a baking sheet, and bake them in the oven at a low setting for about an hour.

After your ornaments have baked, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool. Once they are cool to touch, the fun part really begins. Pull out the paints, felt-tip markers, stickers, glitter, and anything else you can think of, and begin to decorate. Be creative.

When you’re finished decorating, let the paint dry for several hours, and then seal your work with a coat of clear protective sealant. When the ornaments have dried, string a ribbon through the top and tie into a knot. You can also use metal hangers. Hang your new creations from the Christmas tree and enjoy! Granddaughter Gift

 

Easy Ideas for Homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments


A fun family project during the holidays is to make your own Christmas tree ornaments. Here are some easy crafts that will soon have you making your very own ornaments.

Pinecone “Mini Christmas Tree” Ornaments

Supplies:

•Pine Cone

• Green paint (and optional white paint)

• Beads, glitter or sequins, yarn and small buttons to decorate with

• Ribbon

• Glue

Instructions:

• Cut a 6″ length of ribbon.

• Tie into a circle and glue the tied part to the tip of the pine cone.

• Paint the cone green.

• While the paint is still wet, sprinkle with glitter.

• Once the paint is dry, decorate with beads and sequins to look like ornaments on the tree.

• Optional – paint the tips of the cone white to look like snow.

Hang your “mini tree” on the big tree!

Green Christmas Ornaments Card cardIce Cream Cone Ornament

Supplies:

• Plain or  sugar ice cream cones

• A solid-colored ball ornament big enough to sit on the cones

• White acrylic paint

• Tiny glass beads

• Glue or hot glue

• Spray acrylic

• Ribbon

Instructions:

• Hold the cone by the base

• Place glue all along the inside rim of the cone.

• Place the ball ornament on the cone with the hanging side up

• After the ornament is dry, drizzle white paint on top of the ball.

• Sprinkle glass beads on top of the wet white paint.

• Let this dry overnight

• Lightly spray the cone part with acrylic. DO NOT GET TOO CLOSE TO THE CONE WHILE SPRAYING as this may melt the cone. This will seal the cone.

• Tie a colorful ribbon through the loop of the ornament.

Your ornament is done!

Balloon Tree Ornaments

You will need:

• Small, round balloons

• Liquid starch

• Newspaper cut into little pieces

• Corn seeds

• Glue

• Gold paint

• Matches

• Lace

• Pin

Instructions:

• Blow up the balloons until they are the size to fit into the palm of your hand.

• Smear the starch all over the balloon (you can use paper mache, if you’d like).

• Put the pieces of newspaper all over the starch and let them dry.

• Repeat the process three times to create layers.

• Once the newspaper is completely dry,  use the pin to pop the balloons.

• Decorate using the seeds and glue.

• Paint with the gold paint.

• Tie lace onto the match and put it inside the ornament to server as the hanger.

Hang on the Christmas tree!

Sleigh Christmas Ornament

No Comments »Written on July 31st, 2010 by
Categories: Christmas Blog

Tis the season when lots of people drag a real tree into their house and decorate it. Some people buy live trees that are balled in burlap instead of a cut tree. A live tree is a great idea, but many people make serious mistakes when it comes to handling a live tree, and they end up losing their money. The information in this article also pertains to any live tree you are planting, be it now during the winter, or during the summer. Musical Christmas Ornament

1. Before you even take the tree in the house, dig a hole for the tree where you expect to plant it after the holidays. Put the soil in a wheelbarrow and park it in the garage. You’ll need loose soil to backfill the hole, and the ground might be frozen after the holidays.

2. Keep your live tree in the house for as short a time as is possible.

3. Keep the ball plenty moist while in the house, but not in a tub full of water. You don’t want the ball to dry out completely, but by the same token it shouldn’t be soggy all the time either. Just moist. You can wet it thoroughly, but then don’t water again until the water is almost gone. Resin Nativity

4. After Christmas move the tree outdoors as soon as possible and plant it immediately. If you were not able to dig the hole earlier, the ground is frozen, and the tree cannot be planted, leave it outside and pack bags of leaves or bales of straw around the ball. Find a way to heel it in in such a way that the amount of sun and wind the root ball receives is minimal.

5. Try and plant the tree immediately if you can. You do not want to store the tree on top of the ground during the winter if you can avoid it. Putting it in your garage is not a good idea either, it is likely to dry out in there. The absolute best place for the ball is in the ground, even if the ground has frozen after you dug the hole.  Just set the tree in the hole and backfill with loose soil. Make sure there are no air pockets around the ball. Backfill only with small particles of soil. If this cannot be done because the soil is frozen, just set the tree in the hole and backfill as soon as the weather permits.

6. Check the ball for nylon string. Cut and remove any nylon string. Sometimes the diggers wrap the string around the stem of the tree. If the string is a cotton type, like sisal twine, you can leave it on the ball but remove it from the stem. If the burlap is nylon it should be cut in many places or removed. If the ball is wrapped with a wire basket I recommend leaving it on. It will help to secure the tree and keep it from rocking back and forth with the wind. The roots will find their way through the wire and the burlap. Just cut the burlap where you can.

7. Do not plant the tree too deep. This is the number one reason for plants that do not survive. They should not be planted any deeper than they were in the nursery. The top of the ball should be one to two inches above the ground level. If you have heavy, wet, clay soil, you should plant it even higher and build a bed up around the ball. When you plant them too deep the plants literally suffocate.

8. Do not fertilize the tree at the time of planting. You can fertilize it in the spring, but only with an organic fertilizer. If you have compost available, mix some in while planting. Fertilizer can do more harm than it can good. I always recommend organic fertilizers. It’s hard to make a mistake with organics. It’s always a good idea to stake trees when you plant them. If the wind is constantly rocking them back and forth they will have a difficult time establishing new roots in their new home. Sleigh Christmas Ornament