Christmas is coming soon! Time to plan Christmas crafts! One fun craft is to make Christmas ornaments and gift tags out of air-dry clay. You can apply Sparkle Mod Podge, glitter and paint to make them sparkle and shine.

Air dry clay is easy to work with for most ages and no baking is required. This package made about 3 dozen ornaments. (You can purchase this from Amazon.)

To begin, remove the clay from the package and knead a few times. I usually work with about one-third of the dough at a time. Roll out the clay on a smooth surface, using a rolling pin. Look around your kitchen and craft area to find “tools” that you can use to decorate your clay. I used a pie crust cutter and stamp on some of these designs. You may have glasses or bowls with decorative designs on the bottom that you could use. You can also use pieces of lace or trim, small pieces of greenery, embossed rolling pins – or anything with the texture you want.

After you roll the dough, you are ready to get out your favorite cookie cutters and start creating! Or cut your own shapes!

What can you use to create textures or designs in your house?

It may be easier to stamp or apply your design and then cut out with a cookie cutter.

Carefully place the ornaments on a baking sheet. I found out it is best to have parchment paper or a silicone mat under them to prevent them from sticking to the baking sheet. You can gather up the leftover clay and make more designs. The great thing about this clay is that if you don’t like the way the design turns out, just re-roll it and try again

Let dry for about 24 hours, then carefully turn and let try for another 24 hours. Make sure the ornaments are as flat as possible. About 5 hours after I placed them on the baking sheet to dry, some of the corners started to curl just a bit, so I gently flattened them back out.

Once the ornaments are dry, you may want to smooth the edges a bit. I used sponge sanding blocks. You could also use a nail file or sanding paper.

Then the real creativity begins. You can add paint to brighten up your designs. I painted the stripes, outside edges and stand gold on this tree, then when it was dry I applied a layer of Sparkle Mod Podge between each stripe and sprinkled each section with glitter.

The finished tree is behind the angel. I painted the main section of the other two trees dark green and then painted the star and base gold. I applied Sparkle Mod Podge over the paint and sprinkled on the chunky glitter. The angels have two coats of the sparkle Mod Podge, one has the edges painted gold. I used a mini fondant cut-out to create the small heart indentation on the angels.

Do you have some dog lovers on your list? I used images from gift tags and glued them on the houses. Add glitter or a small wreath for the finishing touch.

Just brushing the Sparkle Mod Podge on the ornaments will give them sparkle and shine! Everyone can use their favorite colors of paint to personalize their design. I used a house cookie cutter to cut the clay and then made the heart indentation with a small heart cookie cutter while the clay was still wet. Then I painted the heart pink once the clay was dry.

You can add extra embellishments, like pom poms or snowflakes to your design.

Enjoy being creative! You can make this as simple as just sanding the dry ornaments, or adding all kinds of festive decorations.

Washi tape is also an easy way to decorate these ornaments, just lay down the tape on top of the ornament and press it in place with your fingers. Then trim along the edges.

Use twine, raffia ribbon or holiday ribbon for a hanger or to hang from packages. More ideas coming tomorrow!

Merry Christmas and Have Fun!

Click on the link below for ideas using an embossed rolling pin and alphabet stamps to decorate Christmas Clay Ornaments.

I love living in a place where we can enjoy all four seasons. So fun to watch the daffodils and tulips bloom in the spring, to watch the gardens grow in the summer, and to experience the gorgeous frosty mornings in the winter. But as the summer comes to an end, I am always anxious for fall weather. The cool crisp mornings, the leaves changing colors -and just the beautiful warm fall colors in general, and the cooking that includes pumpkins, apples, soups and breads.

It is also fun to add touches of fall throughout the house. Gather up pumpkins, bittersweet, garlands of fall leaves and candles, along with special treasures or gifts to create a cozy atmosphere. This basket, that I got at Lilly Anna’s for my daughter’s wedding reception, is one of my favorite baskets – I love the color and the memories that come with it.

The scent of fall candles is the air is so comforting, but the instant atmosphere created by a remote helps set the mood too. Flameless remote candles become a bit more realistic each year.

One year my daughters and I had a pumpkin making day. We went to the shop and cut out wooden squares and painted and antiqued them. Love family time!

The warmth of the wood in cutting boards makes a nice background for your fall decorations. The little pumpkin truck is a cookie jar – just ready to be filled with fall goodies.

My husband bought this antique dough bowl for me in Rocheport and it is fun to fill with seasonal decorations. Aren’t the little pumpkin lights cute?

Treasures from the past gathered together for fall.

The kitchen always seems to be the gathering place and the room I am in the most. These are a few of my favorite things. Fall colors, blue and white dishes from a trip to Tallahassee, Mud Pie dishes from a friend and a new addition to the fall décor this year is the copper bowls that my sister-in-law gave me. They add so much warmth – and a bit of shine to the shelves. The wooden cutting boards are stored in an old sewing machine drawer.

I found the little copper-colored baskets at Orscheln’s, one of my husband’s favorite stores. It reminds him of the store his dad and granddad had at Allendale.

Flowers are still blooming and the grass is still green, but soon mums will replace the summer flowers.

Rarely do you see an artichoke in fall decorations, but I love the way the pop of purple and lime colors contrasts with the yellows and oranges.

Another fun little cookie jar! I found this in a little shop in Arkansas last year. We used to gather bittersweet by our farm, but the artificial bittersweet actually look prettier and don’ make a mess.

HAPPY FALL!!! Enjoy making your home all cozy for the new season!

Remember the embossed rolling pin that was used to make elegant Christmas cookies? You can also use it to make beautiful Christmas ornaments and gift tags. Don’t you just love these?

They were made with air dry clay – no baking required. This package made about 3 dozen ornaments.

To begin, remove the clay from the package and knead a few times. Then roll out the clay on a smooth surface, using a regular rolling pin. To make sure you have the surface completely flat, you can roll the clay between two taped down skewers.

After you roll the dough, you are ready to get out your favorite cookie cutters and start creating! If you are using the embossed rolling pin, firmly roll it over your smoothed out clay.

Carefully place the ornaments on a baking sheet (I found out it is best to have parchment paper or a silicone mat under them, some of these stuck a bit). You can gather up the leftover clay and make more designs. The great thing about this clay is that if you don’t like the way the design turns out, just re-roll it and try again.

On these snowflakes, I sprinkled a bit of glitter on them and gently rubbed it in. Then I used alphabet stamps to stamp “SNOW” into the clay.

Use a straw or skewer to make a hole in the top of each ornament.

Let dry for about 24 hours, then carefully turn and let try for another 24 hours. Make sure the ornaments are as flat as possible. About 5 hours after I placed them on the baking sheet to dry, some of the corners started to curl just a bit, so I gently flattened them back out.

When these trees were partially dry, I mixed folk art paint with water and lightly painted the tree. While they were still wet, I sprinkled glitter on them. These would be cute with little red pom-poms ornaments glued on them – maybe a rickrack garland.

Once the ornaments are dry, you may want to smooth the edges a bit. You can do it with a small nail file, or I used a sanding block and sanding paper to make the process go faster. Use twine, raffia ribbon or holiday ribbon for a hanger.

Some of the finished projects! You could use these for ornaments or in your Christmas decorations.

You can also pair with a bit of greenery and ribbon and use for a gift tag.

Try different shapes and stamp your favorite holiday words on them. Personalize the ornaments with kids or grand kids names. You can also use the stamps to put your initials on the back, maybe even the year.

So festive and fun! Great family project to do with kids!

Ready for the Christmas season! Have fun and Enjoy!

Inspiration for these came from the On Sutton Place blog. For complete instructions and more ideas, click on the link below:

https://www.onsuttonplace.com/diy-air-dry-clay-christmas-ornaments/

I have had the alphabet stamps for a while, but you can find similar ones and the clay on the Amazon website.

https://www.amazon.com/Cutters-Plastic-Alphabet-Numbers-Fondant/dp/B07RGGHSKL/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=baking+alphabet+stamps&qid=1575648430&s=office-products&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GAP4YA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1