Cheap, Easy, and Fast.. What's Not to Like?!

It's 1:17 AM, and the hubs and baby have been sweetly (or not so sweetly) sleeping for a while now, while I'm stuck in blog land. And to be honest, I'm too tired and lazy to get up off the couch, brush my teeth, wash my face, put some PJs on.. etc.. ever feel that way? Too tired to go to bed? Yeah.
I'll just quickly share a very easy, cheap, and fast little project I did a few days ago. If you need a Christmas present for your kids' grandparents still, you can make these in 20 minutes, I promise! (plus baking time)





I found inspiration for these hand print/foot print Christmas tree ornaments through Pinterest. Lesley at Homemade Grits did a version of these, and I decided to tweak them to fit my own style. They are soo simple. The hardest part is getting the print just right. Little Bear didn't want to cooperate right away.. but with a little patience, I got him to unclench his hands just long enough to get three separate prints. The feet are easy-peasy, for obvious reasons.

Let me add-- this works best with babies and toddlers. Unless you like your ornaments to be the size of a dinner plate. Ha.

I didn't take pictures of the process.. but I promise it isn't hard to figure out.

First, the recipe:

1 cup salt
4 cups flour
water

Just add half a cup of water at a time, being very careful not to make it too soggy. You want a very firm dough. This recipe yielded enough dough to make 3 hand prints and 3 foot prints for my 11-week-old.. and two large hand prints for my school-age sisters.. plus quite a bit left over. The point is, you could easily half this recipe and still have plenty.

I used the dough hook on my stand mixer to get this mixed real well.. but you could do it by hand if you have the patience. Which I don't.

Take a handful of dough, and roll it out, being careful not to get it too thin. You want it about half an inch thick, so you can get a nice print.

Here comes the hard part now-- getting those chubby little hands to unclench and making a print worthy of keeping on your tree for years to come. I suggest getting another person to help you with this, although I successfully managed to do two of these on my own.

Get a cup or bowl to cut the ornament out.. and remember to make a hole in the top for threading a ribbon through later! I used a straw for this.

You can now either let it dry for a couple of days.. or let it bake in the oven for several hours at 200 F. I did 1 hour at 170 F, and they were still pretty soft. I went ahead and painted them anyway. My impatience will probably cost me, though. Watch these mold before Easter.

I used a can of metallic gold 97-cent Walmart spray paint to paint several layers on these, and then looped glittery blue ribbon I got 50% off at Michael's through the top. All in all, I probably spent $3 tops on all six ornaments. Score!


I'm linking this up to:

The Shabby Creek Cottage
Alicia's Homemaking: Try New Adventures Thursday