Christmas Craft for the Craftless #1

I love hand-crafted goodies, be it ornaments, food, furniture - you name it. However, I am not that crafty.....love the idea of it, just not so good at the application of it, lol. But this year, I was determined to do some fun, easy Christmas craft with my daughters, that did not cost the earth. I have a great children's activity book from the late 1970's that had a recipe for modelling dough and it brought back very fond memories of my mother making us dough dolls. They were beautiful - I believe mine had a red ribbon and a white dress. I have been inspired by gorgeous white ceramic ornaments, some of which I mentioned here.

I have also been inspired by paper-craft, especially the "use-what-you-have-around-the-house" kind, as demonstrated by stylist Megan Morton in the Christmas edition of Australian House and Garden. Although my attempts are base-line basic, it looks good on the tree and has been fun to do with my children :)

Here is Miss Chooken gluing paper patty-pans together to form a cute white chain for our Christmas tree...

Note the patty-pan chain forming in the background.

Next we had a go at the modelling-dough:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup water
Mix till smooth, roll out and cut desired shapes, remember to make a hole with a skewer if you want to hang them.
Let dry in a slow oven or at room temperature for a few days.
Once completely dry, paint, decorate, varnish...whatever is your fancy!

Above - the uncooked ornaments. Once dried, they are a slightly whiter colour. We decided to paint ours as that is more fun for a 4 year old, but I think they would also look great spray varnished and adorned with red ribbon.

Patty-pan chain nestled in the tree also.

I also had a go at making some simple paper ornaments. Cut out 4-5 strips of paper of your choosing. Join each strip end-to-end. Loop each circle through each other and join with a decorative pin. On the opposite side to the pin, thread through cotton or ribbon to secure and to hang. I used some of the dough-beads Miss Chooken and I made out of the left-over modelling-dough. Cute as.

These decorations don't get much cheaper and were lots of fun to make together. I hope to do a similar paper-ball for the place-settings or Christmas day, but if you had letter stamps, you could have a go at stamping someones name on a dough-tag as a place-setting, would look really sweet. They probably wont last for next Christmas....the paper will get squashed, the dough will eventually go mouldy.....but I love the proud look on a child's face when they see something they have made on display - priceless :).

xxx