Two Simple DIY Ornaments for the Classroom or Home
Good evening everyone! I am blessed to get to share some Christmas crafts I have been doing with my kindergarten darlings this year. First let me say, “Where would I be without Pinterest?” I absolutely love this website and I can always find great suggestions and ideas for my classroom! It makes searching the Internet much easier.
My parapro (teacher aide) suggested that we make some salt dough to create Christmas ornaments for the kids. So – we did! I found several recipes online and decided to try A Girl & Her Needle’s version found here: http://agirlandherneedle.blogspot.com/2012/08/simple-salt-dough.html
Recipe:
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup salt
- 1 cup warm water
I did two ways of mixing and both worked equally well!
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl until dough form
or
2. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Mix salt and warm water together and gradually stir in flour until dough forms.
Then I sprinkled flour on a rolling pin and on wax paper to help with the dough sticking. I rolled out the dough, leaving it about 1/4 of an inch thick.
Next, I used simple cookie cutters and cut out my desired shapes. I used a straw to create holes at the top of each ornament so I could lace a piece of ribbon through it.
Then I placed them on a cookie sheet with wax paper and baked them for about an hour – or until they hardened.
I let them cool for several minutes before taking them off of the wax paper. The wax paper did stick to the trees and gingerbread men when I tried to peel them off. I would recommend a nonstick cookie sheet to bake these ornaments.
Once the ornaments were cooled, I packed them up and brought them to school to let the kids decorate! They had a blast and still go and admire their works of art on our Christmas tree. And best of all? They get to bring them home and put them on their very own Christmas trees!
The next ornament that we did as a gift to parents was done with some fake snow bought at Dirt Cheap, pictures of my students, and plastic ornaments bought from Michael’s – 25 for $9.99 after the 50% off was applied!
I took pictures of my students in an elf hat standing in front of our classroom door that had been decorated as Charlie Brown for Christmas. I printed them out on my home computer on 4×6 photo paper but used the 3×5 setting to make the pictures smaller.
First we used a funnel and spoons to put the fake snow in the ornaments. Then we cut out the students’ pictures so that they were small enough to fit in the globe and still be seen. Next, we hot glued the picture onto the metal tab of the top of the ornament. Then we placed the top back in and voila! We had our very own snowy day ornaments!
These are very easy must do DIY ornaments! I plan on making a handprint with my nephew using this salt dough recipe as a Christmas gift for his mom. There’s so many things you can do with both types of ornaments! I made myself a wedding ornament to celebrate our second Christmas together since I didn’t already have one.
I really enjoyed making these ornaments and my students really enjoyed it as well. I hope you try one of these ornaments this year! Merry Christmas and God bless you all!
