OOPSIE DOOPSIE

Happy Holidays! We are in the homestretch, and naturally, the time continues to fly. No chance in tying that down. I probably could use another month to accomplish everything I want to get done {along with the rest of the world}, but the reality is that most of it won’t happen. Getting to that realization and saying “it’s okay!” is a tough one. BUT the flip side? The moments we have spent celebrating and those events and activities we have waiting for us are still filled with endless amounts of magical, glittery, holiday goodness. New adventures woven into those treasured traditions.

Speaking of traditions …

The lovely Suzy spoke about traditions last week. A wonderful post, and if you haven’t hopped on to her site, you should. She made a great point about traditions … you may not realize something is a tradition until it is. It’s something that you just happened to do each year because you loved it. Before you even know you’re doing it, your new tradition is born. After thinking about this a bit more, I realized our tradition of salt dough ornaments – something we started on the first Christmas after we had Madeline – was born.

At three and a half months, our fresh new baby had zero clue what we were doing. I rolled out the dough and pressed her itty, bitty hand and fingers into the dough. I was terrified of pressing her fingers too hard. And then self-doubt crept in…

Did I make the dough too stiff?
Was the dough rolled out thick enough?
And did I have the right stuff to seal the ornament? The brand-new mom voice was shouting, “GET THE MOD PODGE! THESE CANNOT BREAK!!!!!!!!”

The second year rolled around and we knew we wanted to make ornaments again. Why did we want to? Because why not. And this time was a bit more calm. I used the same recipe, or at least I thought. I honestly don’t know what I did to make those suckers puff up, but they did! We did her hands again and made TONS. The mod podge was missing that year. I mixed Elmer’s glue with a little bit of water – works wonders. But overall, slightly less stressful but still kind of figuring out this whole “making-ornaments-with-a-tiny-person-that-just-doesn’t-understand.”

This year – the third year – well, we caught our stride. It was awesome.

Here’s the salt dough ornament recipe {can this be called a recipe? Oh well!}:

1 cup all-purpose flour + extra for rolling out
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water

Straw
Acrylic paint // sharpies for ceramic objects
Mod Podge
Yarn or any string to hang the ornaments

01. Mix all the ingredients together until it’s a lovely hunk of dough.

02. Toss some extra flour on a flat surface and roll the dough through the extra flour. Then, take a rolling pin and start rolling out to your desired thickness. This year, the thickness definitely varied, but it was about 1/4″ – 1/2″ thick. {Half inch at the most!}

03. Take your holiday cookie cutters and get to it! When the ornaments are cut out and on an ungreased baking sheet, use a straw to poke holes at the top for the string.

She was I N T E N S E ! She was all about rolling out the dough and making sure the cookie cutter’s did their job. She did a fantastic job of getting the ornaments keep their shape. Now, sugar cookie shapes, that’s a whole different story 🙂

04. Preheat oven to 250 degrees and pop these babies into the oven for about 2 hours, flipping them over about half way through the baking process.

05. Cool and decorate!

What are a few of your favorite holiday traditions? Have you started anything fun and new that magically became a tradition?

Happy Holidays, everyone!!