Holiday Ramble

After going a little overboard on Christmas presents this year and a VERY expensive hunting trip, I have accepted that money is back to being tight again.

So I have another year of making decorations instead of buying them. Last year, all I made was construction paper garland for the tree. The tree is prelit but I have no ornaments. Well, I DO have ornaments but they are glass and are in storage until the boys are a little older.

The boys begged me to put the tree up on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I caved. The tree went up and was plugged in. It looked sooooo bare. We found the 2 teeny trees that I had forgotten I had. Those got fluffed out and now flank the big tree. It was cute but still looked incomplete.

Last Sunday, the boys and I sat on the floor and made construction paper garland again. Cut, loop, staple. Repeat for hours. The garland got draped around the tree. The presents not from Santa got wrapped and put under the tree too. That still didn't look festive enough.

So last night, I decided I was going to make Salt Dough Ornaments. It turns out that I make ornaments as badly as I cook. Instead of rolling the dough to 1/4 inch thick, I rolled it out to more like 1/16 inch thick and they burned. BUT I have some super thick white paint that should cover up the ugly so we can paint them to look decent. Tonight, I plan on painting the ornaments white so they will be dry enough to decorate tomorrow night.

Salt Dough Ornament Recipe:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

Mix flour and salt. Add water and mix. Take dough out of bowl and knead until smooth, like sugar cookie dough. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky. Heat oven to 300. After the dough is mixed, roll out to 1/4 inch (very important) on a well floured surface. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and poke a hole in the tops to thread ribbon through after baked and decorated. Place on foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes or until firm and dry. Let cool and decorate with paint, glitter, beads, ribbon, whatever. Let dry and hang on tree or use as gift labels.