Who remembers making these simple, DIY ornaments when you were a kid? When we put up our tree last weekend, I found one I made nearly 30 years ago, and decided I had to make them with Big M this year.
DIY Ornaments with Cinnamon Dough
It’s a perfect, low maintenance recipe – just two ingredients!
Shopping List:
Applesauce
Cinnamon
Holiday Cookie Cutters
Straw
Ribbon
Stickers, paint, glue, glitter (if you want to be fancy)Cost: Less than $10
Prep Time: Less than 15 minutes
Clean-Up Time: Less than 15 minutes
I laid everything out so it was ready to go after ‘quiet time’.
Big M is into ‘cooking’ in the kitchen, so I let her help from start to finish. Preheat the oven to 200, and mix applesauce with cinnamon in a 1:1 ratio (so 1 cup of applesauce, 1 cup of cinnamon, or in our case, 2 cups of each).
The dough should get firm enough to roll out and not stick to your fingers, but not so dry it crumbles. You can use extra cinnamon, like you would use flour with cookies, to keep the dough from sticking to your rolling surface.
Then, cut away and transfer to your baking sheet. Use your straw to poke a hole in each one – this is where your ribbon will go through to make it a hanging ornament. Bake for 2 hours at 200. Flip them over, and baked for another hour. My house still smells amazing two days later.
Of course, leave it to Big M to want to make everything ‘fancy’! Since we often make and decorate cookies, while she watched them bake, she wanted to know when we got to decorate them…
This was our post ‘quiet time’ activity the next day. While she was at preschool, Lil’ M and I hit up the Dollar Tree to get table cloths for this weekend’s Breakfast with Santa at Big M’s preschool. While there, we hit the treasure trove of holiday crafting goodies! Including these super cute glittery, foam stickers. Then, we pulled ribbon through to make hangers for each ornament. Quick tip – any time you cut grosgrain ribbon, to prevent it from unraveling, fraying you can sear the tips with a flame to reseal them. Just a quick touch and it’s all set.
Voila! Admittedly, the adding of the ribbons took a lot more work by me than I typically care to do on kid’s crafts, but the end result was well worth it! We wrapped these up for delivery to our preschool teachers, friends and neighbors.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy our Cup & Jingle Bell Reindeer Game and DIY Christmas Countdown Tree. You can also find all of these, as well as our favorites from kids activity bloggers everywhere, on our Christmas board on Pinterest!
10 comments
[…] Cinnamon Dough DIY Ornaments from Playground Parkbench […]
[…] You will never guess what is added to cinnamon to create these Cinnamon Dough Ornaments? […]
[…] you enjoy this post, be sure to check out our DIY Cinnamon Dough Ornaments and Christmas Log Cabins! You can find all of our Holiday posts here, and on our Christmas board […]
When you used 2 cups of each, about how many ornaments did that make? Also, would I be able to make these and bake at home? I’m not sure how to bake at school… thanks!
We used smaller cookie cutters (~2-3 inch, and it made 2.5-3 dozen ornaments. Do you mean cut them out at school then take them home to bake? You definitely can – the low temp oven is essentially just drying them out. I know my Mom bakes at her school and uses the cafeteria ovens, but I know not everyone has access to that.
[…] Friday with the crazed masses. I’ll be working with the girls on these great holiday crafts that make awesome DIY gifts for friends, family, classmates and anyone else on your shopping list! […]
[…] recipes? If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy our posts on Christmas Log Cabins and Cinnamon Dough Ornaments. You can find all of these on our Christmas board on […]
We made these in my kindergarten class during our Gingerbread Unit of study. The children made them for a parent present and we hung a few on our class Christmas tree. Our sense of smell was delighted the whole month of December with the smell of Christmas anticipation of surprises yet to come! I as the teacher, need to remember to wear non-latex gloves because my hands totally swelled and became inflamed with a rash. My skin is highly allergic to cinnamon by touch! Note to self!!!!!
Made the tree decorations yesterday, a success!!!! My grandson took several to school today, they were a BIG hit!!! The 3rd Grade class at Northern Hiils will be making them on Monday. Thanks for the very simple project!!!
Glad you enjoyed! They smell so good… may have to make them again before Christmas just to make my house so fragrant again.