Yesterday we were busy busy busy making those crazy good smelling Cinnamon Ornaments for our trees. We made mini stars for Kensi's tree and larger reindeer (9 to be exact!), trees & gingerbread men for our family tree.
While these suckers were baking, the smell literally woke my dad from his nap. Our oven still smells like cinnamon, but I'm not complaining ;)
The recipe is ridiculously easy, but I do have a few helpful tips for anyone wanting to make them.
1) You need a lot of cinnamon, don't use Penzy's for this....too expensive for these. We bought the store brand from Target, although the picture below only shows one bottle of cinnamon, I bought two and still needed a little more.
2) If you have any allergies or have sensitive skin, wear some gloves. Mixing with your hands is a must and the cinnamon (3 cups worth) can begin irritating your skin if you're super sensitive.
3) This is a 2 day project. The ornaments need to bake for about 1-1/2 hours then need to sit to finish drying out overnight.
I looked at a few different recipes, including the ones on Pinterest, but I doubled my ingredients and added a few extra spices.
This recipe has already been doubled and makes about ----- cookie ornaments.
Cinnamon Ornaments
2 cups Applesauce (plain)
3 cups Cinnamon
1/2 Tablespoon Nutmeg
1/2 Tablespoon Ground Cloves
1/2 Tablespoon All Spice
In a large bowl mix applesauce and cinnamon together. You will need to eventually use your hands.
(Be aware cinnamon powder will fluff up EVERYWHERE!)
Add the Nutmeg, Ground Cloves & All Spice. You may need to add a little more applesauce in order to thoroughly mix everything together. Make sure there are no wet spots in your dough.
Dust your work space & rolling pin with cinnamon and roll out your dough to 1/4 inch thick and use any shaped cookie cutters. Use a straw or a skewer to pierce a hole in the top of ornament (this is where the ribbon will go to hang it). Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 200 degrees F for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
(If you make little tiny ornaments check them after 45 minutes so they don't crack).
Remove from oven, place ornaments on a cooling rack and leave them overnight.
Now comes the fun part!
Get out your glitter and glue and start decorating the ornaments however you like, just don't forget to add a ribbon or kitchen twine so they can hang.
These are perfect for kids to make as gifts for Grandparents or a great finishing touch for a gift of homemade goodies.
As soon as we got back from California, we HAD to pick out our tree. We get a real tree every year, if you haven't done this before let next Christmas be your first. It's so much fun making a day of it, driving to the tree farm/store and picking that year's family Christmas tree. Some years we've been totally ripped off and other years we barely make it home with the tree still tied down to our car....but that's the fun of it!
This year, Kensi got a real mini tree just for her room! You can see it slightly in the back seat.
When I was little my dad, two of my brothers and I would hunt for our tree every year. We have high ceilings so we'd always get a tree around 15-ish feet (no joke!). We would drive all over the area from tree farm to tree farm looking for "the family Christmas tree." It was something we looked forward to every year. So when Mike and I got married, we decided we had to do the same thing!
We have so much fun getting ready for the Christmas season. Christmas music and dancing are a must while we decorate, along with coffee or hot cocoa!
These two were so cute. Mike was dancing with Kensington to Christmas music and she recently started giving kisses and slapped one right on his lips!
These two were so cute. Mike was dancing with Kensington to Christmas music and she recently started giving kisses and slapped one right on his lips!
Kensi made sure to help with decorating.
We have red and white lights on our tree along with bulbs, felt snowflakes and some very personal ornaments that are very dear to us.
Whenever we go on a trip we always pick up an ornament from the city to put on our tree.
We have a snowman made from seashells that came from Seal Beach, CA.
A glass palm tree decorated with Christmas lights from Sarasota, FL.
Glass blown ice skates from when we skated at the Rockefeller Center in New York City.
And there are a few others too.
Kensi LOVES the tree and I've waited forever to see the reflection of twinkle lights in our child's eyes...it was seriously one of the most breath taking things I have ever seen.
I was also able to show Kensi her very first snow fall! It didn't stick, but she was mesmerized by it!
To finish....a picture of our adorable little Mistletoe herself!
Did I mention I am obsessed with hats and tights on babies...cutest ever!
