Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

Anybody out there remember making cut-out sugar cookies when they were growing up?  Every year, my sisters and I looked forward to the day our mom would make her famous cut-out cookies. After they cooled down, the four of us would enjoy time together laughing and decorating them with colorful sprinkles and chocolate chips!  Oh the sugar buzz we would have going on that night!

Now that I have a family of my own, I want to start a tradition of my own.  But when I think about making these cookies I start to see my kids bouncing off the walls and I start to hear the constant begging to have just one more. No thank you!  

So on my search to find a "New Tradition" I found these Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments.  What a great idea!  With 4 inexpensive ingredients, you can follow the same steps as sugar cookies which means all the fun without the sugar high at the end!  And my favorite part, they fill the house with the wonderful aroma of Cinnamon.

Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

Ingredients:

3/4 cup cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup warm applesauce
2 tablespoons of white glue

Directions:

Step One: Mix all in a bowl. Knead to stiff dough. (I used my hands for this part to make sure that it was well blended.) If the cinnamon is not all mixed into the dough, add a little bit more applesauce until it is well blended and your dough has formed.

Step Two: Flatten the dough out with the palm of your hand and your fingers until 1/4 thick.  I then used my fingers to smooth out the surface of the dough.

Step Three:  Using cookie cutters, cut out your ornaments and then place on a piece of foil.

 

Step Four:  Make a whole at the top of the ornament.  I used a wooden shish kabob stick.  You can also use a straw or anything that is small and round.  Be sure to gently flip over and poke through the back side as well.

Step Five:  Leave to dry.  (Some sites that I looked at baked these in the oven on a very low temp but I just let mine air dry.)  Mine took a day and a half to dry.  I flipped them over ever eight hours or so.

 

Step Six:  Decorate!  Be creative!  We used glitter gel to decorate.  You can also use paint, glitter and glue, sequence, beads, whatever you like!  Once your decorations are dry, put a ribbon or piece of yarn through the hole at the top and enjoy these delicious smelling ornaments or give them away as gifts.

  I am going to let the kids put their name and the year on the back and we are going to attach them to our Christmas gifts this year.  Who doesn't like handmade gifts from the special children in their lives?  

This is such a good idea, not only for Christmas time, but ANY time!  I am going to make these in the shape of balloons for my daughters birthday party and set up all the decorating tools and let her and her friends make there own and take them home. What a way to incorporate health into the holiday without the kiddos even knowing it!