Pinspiration Sunday: Homemade Ornaments

I found a really fun and easy tutorial on Pinterest for DIY ornaments. So I had pinned it awhile back thinking maybe I will make Christmas gifts someday. But then I got the awesome idea to make mustache ornaments! What a great favor for Grayson’s 1st Birthday party. Especially since his birthday is just a few weeks before Christmas. Now let me start by saying that I made one batch of these and they DID NOT turn out. The directions are simple…but here’s what I didn’t do: I didn’t knead it before rolling out. I didn’t bake on parchment paper (I used a Pampered Chef stoneware bar pan). The holes I placed in them for the string left a narrow area in the middle which is where most of them broke. And finally they didn’t seem to have completely dried out. Soooo…I decided to try again. This time I still didn’t use parchment paper but I did have wax paper so I used that on a metal cookie sheet. I bought tiny eye hooks that I inserted from the top in the middle that I could then put ribbon through to hang them. I also baked them for an hour and 20min (ten minutes longer on each side). This is how it works:

Ingredients:
1 cup baking soda
½ cup corn starch
¾ cup water

Place all ingredients into a small pot over med-low heat and stir.In the orginal directions it say this process takes a few minutes (which to me means like 5) however it takes about 10-15min.

You stir the pot until it thickens like “smooth mashed potatoes”. Then place dough into a bowl and cover with a damp cloth until cool.

Once the dough has cooled then you can roll out to ¼ inch thick and start cutting. I used Fred & Friends Munchstache cookie cutters that I bought from Amazon.
I inserted the eye hooks prior to baking. I baked them at 175 degrees for 40 min then flipped them CAREFULLY as they were still fragile in the middle. Then baked them for another 40min.

Once done, I removed them from the oven and placed them on a cooling rack overnight (just to be sure they were good to go).

Then I used some paint stain I already had (from ACMoore (it’s the same stain I use on my recipe boxes)) in the following colors: walnut, cherry, and mahogany. You can use craft paint but I wanted the detail to really stick out so I used the stain. I could have watered down the paint a bit but again I had the stain so that was easiest for me.

I then sealed them with mod podge. Finally, I added ribbon through the eye hooks. Here's how they looked:

This is the walnut:

Here is the cherry:

Here is the mahogany:

And here are all 3 together:

I plan on taking a 4 foot Christmas tree to Grayson’s party which I will have the ornaments hanging from with a note telling guest to take one home. Check back after his party to see great pictures from his big bash!