I do this with my kids. Here's a few different dough recipes you can use to make homemade ornaments. I use the first one which is a basic salt and flour dough recipe.
The Christmas ornament dough recipes on this page are for several different types of ornament dough, including ornaments made from salt, oatmeal, cornstarch, and spices. If you're looking for a specific recipe for cinnamon ornament dough, you'll find that --and instructions for making homemade cinnamon ornaments-- here! LINK
Salt-Based Dough for Christmas Ornaments
You remember that dough you used as a kid to make three-dimensional maps in school? This homemade Christmas ornament recipe is exactly the same stuff! And it's just as good for making Christmas decorations as it was for all of your elementary school products. It's also easy and ultra cheap. Ingredients:
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1.5 cups water
Mix: Mix the flour, salt and water together until well combined.
Create: Roll this dough out on a floured surface where you can cut out whatever shapes you want (cookie cutters are the perfect way to do this!). Alternatively, you can make three dimensional decorations (like snowmen) by using a ball of the salt dough and carving it into whatever images you want. You'd be amazed at how detailed you can get here.
Remember to build in a hole through which you can thread a ribbon or string so the final ornament hangs properly. (The end of a straw is good for this.)
Bake: When you're done making the basic image you'll need to bake your Christmas ornament dough at 300 degrees for half an hour.
Decorate! Once removed from the oven, cool your ornaments completely before adding paint or glitter. Hint: Nail polish makes awesome glossy paint, and it comes in wonderful Christmas colors.
Note: By the way, some people add 1 tbs. vegetable oil to this mix so it forms more of a "clay" – you can try it both ways to see which result you like best.
Applesauce & Spice Christmas Ornament Dough
This homemade Christmas ornaments recipe begins with applesauce to which you can add other favorite seasonal aromatics. It's pretty similar to the Cinnamon Ornament Dough you'll find here LINK, though there are some changes to the mix. This one is simpler to make, but may be a little more delicate than the one linked to above.
This doesn't make all that many ornaments, so I'd suggest doubling or tripling the recipe.
Ingredients:
1 cup Applesauce
1 1/2 cups ground ginger, allspice, cinnamon and clove (mixed as desired)
Mix: In a large mixing bowl, mix your ingredients together. If your dough seems crumbly you can add more applesauce or even just plain water.
Create: As with the Salt dough, you can use this to make 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional ornaments.
Cook: Once shaped the dough needs to cook for an hour at 200 degrees F., then cool completely before decorating. You can also leave the ornaments to air dry for several days if you have the time.
Decorate! Decorate as desired with glitter, paint, googly eyes, cotton pom-poms, you name it. You can even recycle old holiday cards or wrapping paper by taking colorful cuttings from them, gluing them to the ornament, then adding a few clear final coats of paint (decoupage style).
Oatmeal Christmas Ornament Dough
This dough has a texture similar to the salt clay. It can also be colored so you can make homemade Christmas ornaments of all colors.
Ingredients:
1 cup oatmeal (not instant)
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup water
Food coloring
Mix: Mix your dough together, adding more flour or water to get the texture desired. Food coloring can go into this mix-- strongly pigmented food colorings, like past food coloring, tend to work best.
Shape: Shape as desired using cookie cutters or rolling into different shapes.
Dry: This dough requires no cooking – just let it dry completely at room temperature for 24 hours.
Decorate! Paint and design as desired. When tinting this Christmas ornament dough, you can tint the whole batch, or you can cut the dough into small balls and color each differently. For example, you could make red and green dough to make a 2-d Christmas tree with red bulbs on it.
Cornstarch Dough Homemade Christmas Ornament Recipe
Last but not least this Christmas ornament dough makes pieces that have a shiny porcelain finish. Note that you shouldn't try to make anything too bulky with this mix as the end result is more fragile than the other recipes provided here. Flat ornaments made with cookie cutters tend to turn out best.
Ingredients:
2 cups baking soda
2 cups corn starch
1 cup plus a little, cold water
Mix: Mix the baking soda, corn starch and water together in a pot over a low flame. Stir constantly until you're happy with the texture of the dough. You can add color to this base if desired.
Cool and Shape: Let cool slightly and shape as desired. Note that when shaping cornstarch dough Christmas ornaments, you'll want to fashion the item larger than you want-- it'll shrink by about 30%.
Dry: The final ornament will need to dry for 2 days at room temperature before you decorate it. The surface of cornstarch dough can be sanded for a smoother look, if desired.
Decorate! These white ornaments look pretty left plain, or with a little bit of glitter or silver paint along the edges. Or you could make something like a snowman with full painted features. Whatever you like!
