Hello all you cookie experts I was wondering if anyone has a recipe for cookie tree ornaments this clients wants me to make them to last a lifetime I dont have a clue, I think I saw a salt something dough for this but I am not sure hope you can help me thanks so much in advance

The recipe:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cup water

Dissolve the salt in warm water. Add the flour. Mix thoroughly. Knead until mixture forms a soft dough.

Roll dough to desired thickness and cut with cookie cutters or mold dough by hand into desired shapes. Remember to poke a hole in your ornament before baking so that you can add a hanging cord.

Place shapes on cookie sheet. Bake in 300 degree oven, keeping an eye on them and removing when dry. Baking time will be determined by thickness of ornament.

I have a recipe for cinnamona/applesauce/glue ornaments. Here it is.

1/2 c. cinnamon
1/2 c. applesauce (smooth)
2 T. glue

Mix together and roll out onto wax paper. Use a gingerbread cutter (or any designed you want) to cut out the shape. Poke a hole at the top with a straw (I leave the little bit of a straw sticking out - take it out when completely dry - so that the hole won't close as it dries). Let air dry for a couple of days. Paint any way you like.

My mom made all of us bear one year for Christmas. I wrapped them up and when I unpacked them the following year they still smelled great!

Do you just paint these with regular kid paint? I think this is a great idea to do with the kids!!!

One of my little boys brought one home from school and it smelled like gingerbread. It smells up the room....YUM!!

Berta

We did last year for our kids group at church. I'm pretty sure we used just regular kids paint. Have fun!

the ornaments I've seen have like a shine to them ..do you have to put any kind of sealer on them?

I never have. You might be able to put some kind of shelac (spelling?) on them to preserve them. This might prevent the "smell" from coming through.

I saw an article once that recommended a mold inhibitor be used (an old Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens or Woman's Day magazine I think). I know you can buy it at sugarcraft.

I think in elementary school we made theseusing food coloring to dye regular Elmer's glue to paint with (??)

Can you put on them royal icing and then put som kind of protection on them or you pain them with an special paint that looks like royal icing or am I crazy

Worth a try!

gilson6, that is a great recipe.....thanks for sharing....

thanks I have to make them for next week I will post the results thanks so much again

omg, i made one of these ornaments in junior kindergarten...today..15 years later i still have it and it's just amazing i think that you can make these with your kids and hang them every year and then when they get older, you can give it to them and they have a little piece of their childhood on their own christmas tree...

this is a great idea..a really fun project to entertain the munchkins

save over the years??

My aunt used to make these for us every year! She used a salt dough recipe. You can run it through the garlic press to get hair or evergreen needles for a tree. She used to put the date on the back and painted them with varnish or shellac for protection. They kept for about 20 years! Great reminder - I might try these with my son this year for Christmas

Found this today....

Cinnamon Ornaments

1 Cup Cinnamon
1 T Ground Cloves
1T Nutmeg
1 C Applesauce
2Tbsp White glue

Combine cinnamon, cloves & nutmeg., add applesauce & glue, stir to combine, knead for 2 to3 minutes. Add more cinnamon if necessary for the dough to be less sticky. Roll to 1/4" thickness. Use cutters to cut out desired shapes. Use straw or toothpick to make a hole for hanging. Place on wire rack & allow to dry at room temp. Turn after a day. It takes about 2 days to dry. Use royal icing (or fabric paint) to decorate. Make 15-20 medium size ornaments. NON-EDIBLE.

Thanks for the recipes even thou I only saw them a year later

If you make the salt dough, be warned, use rubber gloves when you mix it together. My mom used to make salt dough ornaments with scout groups, and if she forgot to use gloves, the salt dough would seriously dry out her hands--to the point of cracking and bleeding. It's great stuff, though! I have some treasured ornaments I made that are decades old. We spray ours with an aerosol shellac.

Thank's a million. I was looking for something like this, both recipes are great.

my daughter made the cinnamon ones when she was in preschool...they didnt color them or anything...we have had hers for 5 yrs now this Christmas and each year i hang it close to a bulb on the light strand and you can smell the cinnamon when you get anywhere near the tree..so if you like the smell of cinn like i do...its a holiday thing for me...say just leave them like they are if you d the cinn ones...

I've made the cinnamon ones in years past. I even used to sell them at craft fairs. They really do smell wonderful for many, many years!

I make salt dough ornaments every year with my boys. We cut them out, and they decorate them. They make great gifts for grandparents. I put the boys initials and the year on the back of them. Some day, I'll give them to the boys when they are married and have their own trees. Hopefully, their wives won't let them throw them away, lol.

What do you decorate the salt dough cookies with...can you use the RI and then spray with a shilac? How pretty would they be if you could?!? Oh the potential and ideas that creates up in my head!

I've made the applesauce/cinnamon ones before as well...made gingerbread people, and put a ribbon on them...that was over 15 years ago if I had to guess, and they still smell really good after all these years!

Many years ago I made cinnamon/applesauce ornaments to fill a tree we put up in the kitchen. I never used any glue in them, just bulk cinnamon from the bulk foods store and applesauce until it was thick like a cookie dough. Cut them out, drinking straw holes, and let them dry on a rack for several days to make sure they were good and dry. Then we took plaid cotton material (easy to come by with my stash of quilting cottons!) in lots of colors and cut strips 1/4" - 1/2" wide and threaded the fabric through the holes, tied with a bow. We used ornament hooks to catch the fabric for hanging. I'm not a big fan of "country" decorating, but that tree was flat-out gorgeous! The only other thing we put on it was multi-colored lights and a large plaid bow on the top. My kitchen always smelled like I was baking, and everyone was really in the spirit. After a few years of rough handling, hubby tossed them out, but I may make just a few this year for our new place to bring back those great old memories (AND make the house smell good!)

Thanks for a lovely thread, ladies!

Odessa

I made the salt ornaments and they turned out horrible. What did I do wrong?? When they were in the oven they puffed up? What was that? Any ideas? Anyone?

I have done both of these throughout the years..even have my own, boy was that a few years ago. Mine has marker on it from when I was in school. The cinnamon ones last forever, I changes the spices to get a house full of smells. It smells like I baked everyday all day nice trick huh! They look great with a small red ribbon and the uses are endless!

Could someone tell me if I did something wrong with these? I made this recipe...

Cinnamon Ornaments

1 Cup Cinnamon
1 T Ground Cloves
1T Nutmeg
1 C Applesauce
2Tbsp White glue

... and I had to add flour to it in order to get it to a rollable stage. I bought the smooth kind of apple sauce and a large bottle of cinnamon at Save a Lot in order not to have a ton of money wrapped up in them if I did something wrong. I had to add a lot of flour to this and now of course they don't really look that nice because they don't have that dark brown color to them. Mine were just really, really sticky and wet. Should I have only used half the amount of the applesauce?

Thanks.

Thanks for your reply aobodessa.

Maybe I just need to double my amount of cinnamon? I measured it out, but maybe since it is in powder form, I should have pressed it down in the measuring cup like brown sugar? They still smell really good, they just don't look that good, lol.

I shall try again, I never can make something right the first time so I always buy double the amount of ingredients, .