Then suddenly it's Thanksgiving and the days between then and Christmas rushbylikeablizzard! There's not enough time for all the holiday parties and present shopping and decoration... let alone jobs and chores and normal life. I wish everyday lately had at least 6 more hours for me to bask in my Christmas lights, wrap presents, or just sleep.
Amid the lovely bustling, I was invited to partake in the Phelan family tradition of making homemade ornaments for their tree.
It's a simple recipe for the dough:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
(although Lucas just went off of a "dream of a memory": follow your dreams kids, it works!)
While your hands are still nice and clean, turn the oven to 300 degrees.
Mix the flour and salt, then mix in the water a little bit at a time.
Knead it like you need it, which might take a bit.
Roll out the dough with flour all over your surface and roller.
Then comes the fun part: mold the dough according to your personal fancy!
Tips:
-You really can't have enough flour on your hands.
-To make bonds, rub water on the seam.
-Don't make your ornament too heavy! You'll be sad when it breaks.
-Make sure there's flour underneath your ornament while you assemble it. If it gets stuck to the surface, just use a spatula to ease it off.
-Use toothpicks to add detail.
-Poke a hole somewhere in your ornament so you can hang it!
Put all your gorgeous doughnaments on a baking tray.
At this point, your creations are going to look a lot like cookie dough. I promise you-- unless you crave the taste of damp paste-- you won't want to eat this dough.
Instead, press some beads or buttons down (hard) into the dough to decorate!
Now put them in the oven for an hour or more, until they are crackly and dry.
Take them out and let them cool. When they've cooled, it's time to paint!
You can use acrylic paint if you're superfancy, but we just used food coloring and water, which made us feel like little kids, and that's a very good feeling.
Here's how we did:
One last step: trim the tree!
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