I mentioned in my last post that for our Christmas in Africa series we made cinnamon ornaments. We wanted a simple craft that could be a keepsake from this Christmas. Last year, if you remember, we made Advent Banners, that were just about the death of me. This year I wanted to keep the prep way less time consuming and the craft easy enough for all the kids on Sunday morning (preschool included). So we came up with these ornaments!

Making these ornaments is pretty simple, but just a bit time consuming. We used the recipe from the McCormick website. You can find the recipe HERE. Basically it’s two bottles of cinnamon and 3/4 cup of applesauce. We quadrupled the recipe and it gave us around 100 ornaments.  The time consuming part is the baking, 2 1/2 hours in the oven at 200 degrees. You can also let them air dry for 1-2 days.

Since we did “Christmas in Africa” I found this great cookie cutter on Amazon  and my sweet friend Barbara at The 25 Project gave me some fabric from Sierra Leone to use to hang the ornaments. You can also find similar fabric HERE on Amazon.

After the baking, we boxed the ornaments up for Sunday morning. I had to think of the least messy way possible to decorate them, since acrylic paint on a Sunday could be a major disaster. I figured out glitter could be the best option. Here’s the decorating supplies we used:

• Modge Podge (or any type of glue that dries clear)
• Glitter (Dollar Tree is the cheapest)
• Paint Brushes
• Hair Spray
• Paper plates

First, you coat the ornament in your glue.

Second, you sprinkle on your glitter and then dust off the excess.

Then you let it dry. This should only take about 15 minutes or less. After it’s dry, do a coat of hair spray (not too thick) to seal the glitter in.

When everything is dry, tie on your ribbon and you’re done!

Easy peasy! The best part is that our kids didn’t make a mess! We put plastic table cloths down and just threw it all away when they were done. I recommend sending the ornament home on a plate to make it easier on mom and dad at pick up. The plates below were done by our 2s & 3s class!

The kids loved making these ornaments and I’ll say the prep was pretty easy. Plus these last a long time. I think my mom still has my cinnamon ornament from elementary school! I’d love to see your cinnamon ornaments! Be sure to tag me on Facebook and Instagram if you make them.

Thanks for letting me share,