frugal christmas question - making ornaments?

[sunnylady303]

So I had the clever idea that for all the grandparents and great grandparents I could "help" my girls make Christmas ornaments for them. I think it's a great idea except that I am SO uncreative and I need ideas. I've looked online and feel totally overwhelmed. Does anyone have any good ideas?

[lmonter]

Last year I made gingerbread man ornaments. I think I have the recipe bookmarked if you'd like me to dig it up. After we pulled down the tree I think I put them all in a baggie to keep the yummy smell with 'em even longer (apparently they smell good for years). I made the mistake of mixing 'em up with my hand mixer. Almost burnt out the motor. Never knew you need to use a big mixer when you're doing stuff with molasses. Besides the cost of baking supplies, I used some cute little ribbon to hang them with. Tree looked and smelled great last year. I gave a few to my sister, apparently she uses them as room fresheners, and they're still going strong. Silly sisters...

This year, I got some pipe cleaners and those triangle-shaped colored beads. Plan to make some little candy canes and some other shapes with 'em with my 4yo. Also got a package of wooden beads to play around with as well (all with my Black Friday coupon to Michael's!). We'll see what happens. But I'm also more of a less-is-more gal with the tree - I almost had too many gingerbread men on it last year. I like seeing the tree in between the ornaments.

[Daisie125]

Scented Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornaments

These smell so good and make wonderful grandparent or teacher gifts from the kids. Even the littlest kids can help cut out the shapes with cookie cutters. Don't forget to put the hole in it before it dries, make it big enough for your ribbon or string because they do shrink a bit.
*****
Scented Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornaments

3 cups applesauce
3 cups ground cinnamon

1. Mix applesauce and cinnamon together until it is thick enough to hold a form when cut into cookie cutter shapes. Flatten the mixture on a flat surface and cut into cookie cutter shapes.

2. Place cookie shapes on a cookie sheet to dry for 3 to 4 days depending on the size and thickness of the cookies. If using as a hanging ornament, make hole with toothpick before drying.

Makes 15 ornaments

[lmonter]

Wow, that's a lot of cinnamon. Do they hold their scent year after year?

[beansricerevolt]

subbing!

We are totally going to try the apple cinnamon ones!

Any Garland ideas? We tried the whole popcorn on a string last year. We ended up with on medium size strand. That strand alone took a few hours: and I had no patience to do he rest of the tree with popcorn : It would have taken a few days. Not my idea of fun

[lmonter]

Originally Posted by beansricerevolt

Any Garland ideas?

Construction paper! Or you could go "festive" and use holiday wrapping paper. Or cranberries, but to me that seems a waste of perfectly good food.

[Emmeline II]

My MIL made ornaments with her dc. My favorite was a reindeer made from a clothes pin like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clothpin.jpg

but with a larger top with a flat "face." It had googly eyes, felt antlers, and a bell around its neck.


and:
http://www.wasknijperssparen.nl/obje...ption.cfm?ID=1

[wombatclay]

We've made reindeer ornaments where the head is a clothespin and the antlers are the kiddos' handprints traced and cut out of brown construction paper. We've also made wreathes by tracing/cutting handprints from green paper and gluing them into a wreath shape. And angels made from construction paper cones with white handprint wings.

For more "gift worthy" ornaments I crumple junk mail and use tape to make a 3-d heart shape. Then I help dd layer on papermache (initially just more junk mail, but the last few layers are tissue paper in whatever color I want) to cover and smooth out the heart. The final step is to have dd put handprints on the heart. We send these to he grandparents/great grandparents with a note saying "I can't hold your hand, but I can hold you in my heart". It's usually a big hit.

[Daisie125]

Originally Posted by lmonter

Wow, that's a lot of cinnamon. Do they hold their scent year after year?

We have some that we made when my brother was in kindergarten... so, 10 years ago, and every year when we open the ornament box we smell them right away.

[MelanieMC]

Originally Posted by Daisie125

Scented Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornaments

These smell so good and make wonderful grandparent or teacher gifts from the kids. Even the littlest kids can help cut out the shapes with cookie cutters. Don't forget to put the hole in it before it dries, make it big enough for your ribbon or string because they do shrink a bit.
*****
Scented Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornaments

3 cups applesauce
3 cups ground cinnamon

1. Mix applesauce and cinnamon together until it is thick enough to hold a form when cut into cookie cutter shapes. Flatten the mixture on a flat surface and cut into cookie cutter shapes.

2. Place cookie shapes on a cookie sheet to dry for 3 to 4 days depending on the size and thickness of the cookies. If using as a hanging ornament, make hole with toothpick before drying.

Makes 15 ornaments

That sounds wonderful. Thanks!

[ediesmom]

Originally Posted by beansricerevolt

subbing!

We are totally going to try the apple cinnamon ones!

Any Garland ideas? We tried the whole popcorn on a string last year. We ended up with on medium size strand. That strand alone took a few hours: and I had no patience to do he rest of the tree with popcorn : It would have taken a few days. Not my idea of fun

we have used gumdrops for garland.......but this year we are going to do pompoms! we saw it in a store window.....brightly colored little pompoms on yarn. its so cute!

ive also hot glued hard candies to ribbon for garland. we make all our decorations each year. for us its the fun of how creative we can get

my favorite.... apple and orange slices, dehydrated. kumquat 'pomadores', cranberries and popcorn strings, and cinnamon sticks tied with ribbon. It makes for a really pretty, good smelling tree. with that one we use white lights

with the pompom garlands I'm thinking colored lights and really big gumdrops on ribbon. maybe i'll drag out some old christmas bulbs.

I LOVE Christmas trees

[annethcz]

Every year my sister makes ornaments. She buys the clear glass balls and draws pictures with markers. They turn out so cute.

[MrsAprilMay]

Here's a link to salt dough ornaments:

http://www.ehow.com/how_3560_make-ornaments-dough.html

[Proudmom]

I am glad I stumbled on this thread. I am always searching for ideas. The cinnamon/applesauce ornaments will definitely be done as well as salt dough.

Great ideas!
PM

[lilgsmommy]

Originally Posted by Daisie125

Scented Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornaments

These smell so good and make wonderful grandparent or teacher gifts from the kids. Even the littlest kids can help cut out the shapes with cookie cutters. Don't forget to put the hole in it before it dries, make it big enough for your ribbon or string because they do shrink a bit.
*****
Scented Applesauce-Cinnamon Ornaments

3 cups applesauce
3 cups ground cinnamon

1. Mix applesauce and cinnamon together until it is thick enough to hold a form when cut into cookie cutter shapes. Flatten the mixture on a flat surface and cut into cookie cutter shapes.

2. Place cookie shapes on a cookie sheet to dry for 3 to 4 days depending on the size and thickness of the cookies. If using as a hanging ornament, make hole with toothpick before drying.

Makes 15 ornaments

I recomend using a straw to make the hole.....once it shrinks you have a better hole for threading )

[beansricerevolt]

I made some of the apple cinnamon ornaments. yummy!
I had to add a couple tablespoons of white "School" glue in order to get the cinnamon to stick.
A straw works wonderful for holes!

[cornflake girl]

We made rudolph ornaments out of burnt out light bulbs:

http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/tre...lbreindeer.htm

[texaspeach]

I have a bunch of origami paper cranes I made into ornaments. fold a crane out of 6x6 or larger paper, take a wire/ornament hanger and thread it through the crane. you can add a bead to the end of the wire (the one on the bottom side of the crane not the top) so it stays on the crane a little better

[jackson'smama]

we did salt dough, rolled it out, and pressed oldest ds's handprints and youngest's footprints. then trimmed with a pastry wheel to make a pretty edge, baked, and painted. oldest painted his own, i did the baby's. these will go to the grandparents (with name and year on the back). we also did traditional cookie cutter shapes (tree, star, etc...). warning: don't hang too low on the tree if you have a scavenging dog. we've already lost several :