Cinnamon dough to make ornaments?

[allisonrose]

When I was a kid, my mom made cinnamon scented ornaments with us. I asked her and she told me that it was a salt/flour dough recipe with a ton of cinnamon added in. She baked them afterwards to harden them. Googling pulled up a few results with a salt dough and also a few with applesauce in the dough.

I'm thinking about making some and squishing my toddler's handprint into them and sending them to family members as a little Christmas present. (Yeah I'm really a bit low on time....) I'm wondering if anyone has experience with either types of doughs and have input on which would be durable enough to be mailed and maybe even dropped once or twice?

[Pookietooth]

We made some like that in my ds's preschool about 4 years ago, using salt dough with cinnamon. They didn't seem very durable and I think his broke that year. Good luck!

[34me]

We made the ones with applesauce in my son's 1st grade class. He is in 8th now and we still have it. I wouldn't mail it unprotected because of the mail machines but it should be able to withstand some rough handling. Ours survived a house fire.

[AfricanQueen99]

If you're not dead set on using salt dough you can buy this stuff called Model Magic and use that for a handprint.  It's really easy to work with, *extremely* light (good for ornaments and/or mailing) and relatively inexpensive.  I've seen it for sale at Hobby Lobby and Michael's and I know that Amazon sells it - so it's not difficult to find.

I've used it for handprints.  Make a ball and start gently making it flatter (not too much, though), then push the hand in.  If you don't like the handprint - try again.  If you want it to be an ornament you'll want to use a straw or something to make the hole while it's still pliable.  FWIW, it's MUCH easier to do little kid hand prints with a second set of hands there!  It's an air-dry product so you just leave it out and it will harden.

UGH - I just noticed this is an old thread!  Anyway, it's still a good product!