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Christmas ornaments add beauty to any christmas tree or holiday decor and these simple ornaments make great gift ideas for the children to give to grandparents, aunts, uncles and even teachers as a special holiday gift

Whether you decide on the Cookie Dough clay or the Baker's Clay recipe, you and your children will enjoy coming up with your own shapes and patterns for your Christmas decorations.

Please note that adults should prepare the shapes a few days before the kids are ready to paint them, to allow for drying time.

Cookie Dough Clay

2 Cups of Salt
1 Cup Cornstarch
Water

In a pot, mix the salt with 2/3 cup of water, stir and bring to a boil.

In a bowl, mix cornstarch and 1/2 cup cold water until well mixed, (kind of creamy).

Add the cornstarch mixture to the salt mixture and stir over the heat. When it is nice and thick (about 30 seconds) dump the dough onto a board dusted with cornstarch.

Cool until you can work it, but still warm.

Rub your hands with cornstarch and knead the dough a few minutes until it is nice and workable and holds together.

Roll it out and cut with Christmas cookie cutter shapes or have the kids make their own shapes out of cardstock and cut the dough around them.

With a straw or other object, poke a hole in the decorations big enough to thread a ribbon or string through later on.

Set ornaments on cookie trays and put in a warm spot to dry. (May take a day or two to dry completely, so plan ahead)

When the ornaments are dry, paint them with acrylic paints, thread a ribbon through the hole when the paint is dry and hang them on the tree.

Hint: To quicken drying time, preheat oven on to 350 deg. F. Turn off the oven and place ornaments on cookie trays in the oven overnight.

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Baker's Clay

Preheat oven to 350 Deg F

4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup salt

Mix all the ingredients together and knead the dough about 5 minutes on a floured board.

Roll it out and cut out Christmas Shapes (or any other shapes you might like).

Make a hole with a straw or other object so that you can hang them after they are done.

Place on cookie sheets and bake for 1 hour.

When cooled paint and decorate as desired.

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Although I like the sturdiness of the Baker's Clay (you can drop them on the floor and they will not break) I find that there is a lot of "cracking" through the whole decoration.

I really liked the Cookie Dough Clay for the ease of preparing and elasticity of the dough, although it does take a while to dry the ornaments if not using the hint.

This is the unpainted decoration from the Cookie Dough Clay:

And here are two finished Christmas ornaments:

If you like the wee penguin on the top Christmas ornament, you can get the instructions on how to draw him on the Christmas Colouring Page

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