Sparkly White Ornaments

 It is Day 6 and we have on our garland an activity entitled "Make salt dough ornaments". However, since we wrote down our countdown activities on Day 1, we found out about White Clay Ornaments from The (amazing) Imagination Tree, and fell in love with them. So this activity has been changed to allow us to make white clay ornaments.

Ju mixed up the dough (1/2 cup corn flour, 1 cup bicarbonate soda and 3/4 cup warm water) and then I heated it up on the hob, stirring until it started coming off the side of the pan. Having frequently helped out with making playdough at nursery, Ju instructed me to stop cooking it at that point. We let the dough/clay cool a bit and then kneaded it. Wonderful texture and beautifully white!

Ju and Lilo rolled it out and cut out different shapes using our festive cookie cutters.

Ju and Lilo get cutting

They then sprinkled silver and red glitter onto the shapes.

Ju sprinkles silver glitter onto some snowflakes

We ended up mixing the glitter into the dough.

Glittery white dough... just like new snow sparkling in the sun

Lilo enjoyed poking holes in the rolled out dough with the stick we used to make the holes for hanging.

Lilo pokes holes in the clay

Ju noted that the candy cane shapes look like "J for Juju"; he also designed a snowman with the white clay.

Some of our shapes, including the snowman

 We baked the shapes for one hour at 100 degrees C and let them cool down.
 Ju then threaded some red wool through the holes to allow us to hang the ornaments.

Ju uses fine motor skills to thread the wool through the holes

We then hang them up on our tree and they look wonderful. Apparently they can be painted, but their dainty white, glittery simplicity is a real winner... We will definitely give some of these away to our friends as gifts, as they can complement any Christmas tree.

Ju hangs a gingerbread man ornament in the tree

Bell ornament 

Snowflake, heart and candy cane ornaments

"J for Ju" candy cane next to one of our dried orange slices from Day 4