Christmas Clay Ornaments

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.