"O Christmas Tree..." part 1

A few years ago, we inherited a Christmas tree. Russ and Judy bought a new tree that year and Todd wanted their old tree which was the tree from his childhood. His request was granted and we took home another Christmas tree!

We (I) decided we would make all the ornaments for it and had so much fun with the kids that December crafting ornaments for our new tree! It became a new family tradition :) Each year we put on the ornaments we've crafted from earlier Christmas' and add a few new ones. It's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon making, not only new ornaments for our tree, but some family memories as well.

This year we made salt dough ornaments. I taught a pioneer class this fall at co-op and it was an activity in one of the books I used. Perfect! The recipe I used is:
two cups flour
one cup salt
one and a half cups water (although I didn't use all the water)
We mixed the flour and salt first then slowly added the water until it looked like Play-do. The we rolled it out and used cookie cutters to cut the shape we wanted. Be sure to put a hole in the top for the string! (I forgot on the first batch) Bake at 300 for about an hour then cool. Another option is to separate some of the dough and knead in food coloring. We wanted to paint ours so we left them white.
I put names and the year on the back.
Our(almost) finished tree:
I have a few projects still laying around waiting to be finished so we'll have a few more to hang on there soon! ;)