DIY: christmas aromatic ornaments

Most memories are connected to a special smell. Odor can bring back old memories you though you had forgotten. For me and I'm sure for many other, the Holidays come with a lots of memories and smells. The food, the trees, the cold crisp air, firewood's burning... This year, we have a gorgeous Christmas tree, it is so much fuller than the past years. We ended needing a few more ornaments. I decided to make salt dough ornaments with my kids and create my own family memories this year. I added to my regular salt dough recipe, some cinnamon and ground cloves. The cinnamon will add a darker color and mixed with the cloves, they add a great olfactory sense to your decorations. It was amazing how good the house smelled while they were cooking and how they still smell good while hanging on the tree. 

You will need:

-3/4 cup of salt

-1 cup of flour

-1/4 cup of water

-2 tbs corn starch

-3 tbs of ground cinnamon

-1/2 tbs of ground gloves

Mix all of the ingredient together in bowl. Mix until it form a dough. Roll Dough to about 1/4 - 3/8 inches thick and cut out shapes. If they are too thin, they will be very fragile to handle and if they are too thick, it will take a lot more time for them to bake or dry. You can leave them out for few days to dry out, or you can bake them (I did) at 300° F for about 2 hours.
After they cooled off, we painted our with acrylic paint.

They are a great project with kids, they can help with every steps (except for the oven) and create their own ornaments. I know mine, from when i was a kid, are still somewhere at my parents house with their Christmas decorations and memories. 

DIY-hand-print reindeer christmas card

Since most of our relatives live far from us, every year I go spend some time at the post office mailing our holiday wishes to all of them. This year I decided to make with my son our own cards. I feel it's more meaningful and fun than the generic Christmas card and since I wasn't going to send any presents this year, we can still show that we care about everyone, even far away. 

This craft was very easy and quick. All you need is

-Brown acrylic paint

-1 paint brush

-construction paper (green, red and beige or white)

-white glue

-goggle eyes

-holiday stickers (optional)

-felt (optional)

I applied the paint on my sons hands and print his hands on the paper in a few different ways. After I just used a little bit of imagination and some goggle eyes, felt and stickers and we had some very fun cards for the family.

I just love the holidays.