~Homemade Christmas Ornaments~

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the ornaments.  Rudy and I have been collecting ornaments from everywhere we go so that one day we will have three trees worth of ornaments like my parents do! I love going home at Christmas and just staring at the trees and looking at all of the ornaments, which if anything, is a representation of how our family has evolved over the years.  Sprinkled amongst all of the meaningful ornaments are the homemade ornaments.  Some I made at Girl Scouts, others my brother and sisters made in school.  All have withstood the test of time and are proudly displayed on the trees.

This year I wanted to start our own homemade ornament tradition with Rowen.  This is a step by step of how I made the ornaments and I think they turned out wonderfully and I look forward to still having them hanging on my tree when Rowen is 25!

~ To make the dough I combined 4 cups of all purpose flour, one cup of salt, and one and a half cups of water.  If it still seems a little dry just add a few drops of water but don't over do it.  You will have to kneed the dough for about ten minutes to get it ready to roll out.  

~Once your dough is ready, roll it out on a non-stick or lightly Pam-ed cookie sheet.  To get the handprints for us it was a two man job, one person holding Rowen, and the other maneuvering his hand.  Be careful they don't dig their fingers into the dough because then you have to start over again.  Once you have the hand print you want, trace out the shape of a circle around it.  To bake, set the oven at 350 degrees and bake for approximately 45 minutes or until golden brown.  The thicker you make your ornament, the longer it will take to bake.  Once it has hardened it should look something like this...

~I let mine cool for about 25 minutes before I started to paint.  I wanted my ornaments to be gold so I used a metallic gold which I think highlighted the textures of the ornament very well.  I picked this up at Michaels...

After one coat my ornaments looked like this...

~ To complete these I put on two more coats and a coat of clear gloss glaze to seal the paint.  I grabbed some red felt ribbon from Michaels to hang them from...

And I may still add some tags with Rowen's name and the year.  I am so happy with the final results and they are now displayed prominently on my tree...

Overall I think this was a fairly simple and quick project that will last for years to come, and I hope to do it each year as our family grows! What homemade ornaments are you all making this year?