With daily schedules bursting at the seams, decorating your home for the holidays can seem like just another chore on your to-do list. Although it may seem quicker and easier to buy your ornaments at your local discount store, consider clearing some time in your schedule to make your own holiday ornaments.

Youll find that the time spent creating your unique holiday creations will be well spent.

Heres a recipe for making your very own Dough Ornaments. Its simple, fast, and very expensive. More importantly, they are fun to make with family, and you will love the sight of them hanging from your Christmas tree!

Homemade Dough Ornaments

For the dough mixture, you will need:
4 cups of flour
1 cup of water
? cup of salt
Food Coloring bottles (optional)
Cookie Cutters (optional)
2 cups ground cinnamon (optional)

For decorating your ornaments:
Ribbon
Acrylic paints and brushes
Glitter, Stickers, Stamps, Etc.
Clear protective paint sealant

Mix the dry ingredients together, and then add water. If youd like, you can add food coloring to your dough mixture. You may want to mix up several batches of different-colored dough, or you can plan on decorating your ornaments later with acrylic paints.

For an extra special treat, mix two cups of ground cinnamon into your dough mixture. Your ornaments will be tinged with a wonderful cinnamon scent!

If your dough mixture feels too sticky, add more flour. Knead the dough until it is smooth and stiff. Use a roller pin to flatten out the dough. Once the texture is smooth and consistent, use cookie cutters to cut out different shapes. You can also shape the dough into a design of your own.

If you used food coloring to create batches of different-colored dough, nows the time to get creative. For example, if youve mixed up a small batch of red dough and another batch of regular-colored dough, you can create candy cane decorations. Simply create one batch of red colored dough, and leave aside a portion of regular dough. Then flatten out the dough and cut out two long strips from each batch. Intertwine the two strips to create candy cane decorations!

Once all the dough has been shaped, use the tip of a pen or straw to make a small hole at the top of each of your ornaments. Then place them on a baking sheet, and bake them in the oven at a low setting for about an hour.

After your ornaments have baked, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool. Once they are cool to touch, the fun part really begins. Pull out the paints, felt-tip markers, stickers, glitter, and anything else you can think of, and begin to decorate. Be creative.

When youre finished decorating, let the paint dry for several hours, and then seal your work with a coat of clear protective sealant. When the ornaments have dried, string a ribbon through the top and tie into a knot. You can also use metal hangers. Hang your new creations from the Christmas tree and enjoy!