For years, I've noticed the same things in shops; it it seems to me that the decorative industry has gone into “ fight or flight ” during the holidays, when people spend the most.
I lost interest a long time ago, in looking at the same ornaments every year during the holidays, only with the addition of EVEN MORE glitter. No buying plastic Christmas trees, and while there will be time for real ones (when someone plant it for me), decision for this year is brought - HANDMADE decoration!
When I was a kid, I used to carefully handle glass Christmas decorations, timidly putting them on the Christmas tree and every now and then one would break, shiny nicely balls.
Nowadays, glass ones are difficult to find; they are mostly made of plastic, and no matter how much glitter they have on them, they still look cheap.
For me, it is still too early to start making plans for holidays, as Orthodox holidays are in January. But being synchronized with the rest of the world is inescapable, and when December 1st arrives, I know that decorating season has officially begun.
Already had the idea of passionately boycotting capitalism, I just lacked the idea of what and how.
And then I grabbed the idea here, how cool, ha?
After some online research, I found how to make the well-known "salt dough," a clay substitute.
Dashed to the Chinese shop, passing by the newly displayed tacky decoration, picking up a couple of brushes and few more tangles, then hurried back home rolling up my sleeves and getting to the work.
You will need the following ingredients to make salted dough or homemade clay:
Water (200 mL) (one cup)
200g flour
200 mL of salt
Knead all the ingredients, do not add all the water at the very beginning, slowly add it in until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. Separate one ball, set it aside for a few minutes, and if it doesn't flatten, the dough is ready to roll out.
Pull out everything you own in the theme of New Year's holidays, glitter, ribbons, cotton candy, cake decorations...
I also purchased a fondant decorating set with interesting textures (which I have yet to master), unfortunately from all cutters I lacked some shapes, such as leaves.
#handshaped.
It was the turn of the stars, because what would holidays be like without them?
Which New Year's symbols are your favorites?
My choice is a snowflake, so I ended up with a few stars and a bunch of snowflakes, or flowers - it's all about perspective. :P
Some lofi playlist was playing in the background, it was raining, and it does still.
I had forgotten about the time, total exclusion.
Bake at 50 degrees for at least 3 hours on baking paper. Of course, the thickness of the decorations is crucial, but keep in mind that the dough will not rise during baking.
I was still looking impatiently forward to the coloring and decorating.
The dough is however not edible, but if someone is curious, can take a bite (good luck with the salt). I was thinking about cake colors, but didn't like that because I wouldn't be able to use painting brushes and that is the FUN part.
Water colors in tubes - recommended.
Water colors also have the bonus of being simple to remove from the hands, easy to apply, and dry quickly.
Back to school!
Okay, so we are making ornaments, to hang on? What?
That's something I stole from Mother Nature.
A couple of spruce sprigs.
The smell of pine is the best part about having a Christmas tree in the house, I will not comment on when the needles start to fall off.
Allow the ornaments to cool completely before coloring.
My first choice was this leaf; I liked it right away and knew exactly how I wanted to color it. All of the colors in the tubes were unnatural in some way, and I wanted that rustic pastel moment.
Add a dash of brown to any combination to achieve this effect (except for the white).
Before baking, drill out the small dot near the top to make it possible to hang the decorations.
I simply stained the back of the ornament with the same color to prevent it from remaining contrasting white.
We will draw it if there is no snow!
Couple years back, there is almost no snow for the holidays, which is extremely boring.
All of these ornaments cost me less than 5 euros, which is less than the price of a package of 6 plastic ornaments - beat that capitalism!
It's time to put together this year's one-of-a-kind and only New Year's decoration.
This glass object was used to put everything that has no place and no use into it until an hour ago.
Now it will be the trunk of my Christmas tree, filled with cotton wool and few random ornaments.
Wohoooo, the first one took his place. I'm not sure if anyone other than @corvidae has ever experimented with making dough figures; to some may have come out smooth, but mine had a slightly rough texture.
(and I like it)
Big ice blue sparkly star!
I'm sorry about the bad light, but I wouldn't have the patience to wait until tomorrow.
The others are on a separate "plate," and will most likely end up as gifts. This mixture will make approximately 30 ornaments.
I can assure you that it looks much better in person.😂
This was so much fun that I'm going to start having fun often with non-edible dough as well as edible dough. A great solution for unique details, without limits.
That's all I've got for this holiday season in terms of ornaments; we'll be back soon with sweet and delicious edible decorations.❄️
