Mold St. Nicholas and his bag of toys...

This faux clay cookie version is shaped using a Cotton Press mold by AMACO. You can paint
it in a variety of styles and colors. My version is just one way to interpret the casting. Copy
it if you like or make your own color choices to match your personal ornament collection.

       This terracotta cotton press mold was acquired about thirty years ago; I'm not certain of it's age. It was produced by American Art Clay Co., Inc. in IN. Saint Nicholas is dressed in a Victorian, fur trimmed, red wool coat. He holds up his green trousers with a giant brass buckle and carries a sack of toys for good children, of course. 

       I gave him some rosy red cheeks and a winter white beard. Under his coat is a burgundy wool vest with big brass buttons down the front. His boots are classic black. This flat back, molded Santa was made using Sculpey oven-bake clay. This clay is quite durable and may be painted with non-toxic acrylic paints. Make sure to seal the surfaces with some kind of clay varnish once you are satisfied with the painted finishes. He looks as new as when he was first painted over 25 years ago!

DIY Gingerbread Barnyard!

Faux gingerbread silo, barn and cow.

       This year one of our family trees will be decorated with a food theme. This tree is located near the kitchen and dining room. Lots of sugar plums, gingerbread, caramel apples, doughnuts and candy will fill out its green branches along with colorful LED lights.

Supply List:

• Styrofoam beads
• scrap cardboard
• 3 or 4 cotton balls
• fancy joint tape or drywall joint tape
• acrylic paints
• white school glue
• brown paper 
• masking tape
• small farm animal figure (cow, pig, chicken etc...)
• cardboard tube
• white puff paint
• candies shaped with Sculpey
• recycled cheese box lid
• wire for attaching it to your Christmas tree
• wooden toy tree shape
• realistic pine bough chenille stem 
• Mod Podge

Step-by-Step Instructions: 

1. Use a recycled cheese lid to build your barnyard on top of. In this case I used a lid only but you could keep the bottom and the ornament can also be used to hide a small gift inside of the box if you like. Cover the top half of the lid with masking tape and then decoupage it with white school glue and brown paper.
2. Now glue a box and long narrow cardboard tube side by side on top of the lid to start the faux gingerbread ornament. cover with masking tape and glue and brown paper as well.
3. Glue on any other kind of detailed figures like cows, sheep and pigs. Glue on any small wooden details like a tree as well.
4. Paint out all of the elements using a warm brown shade of acrylic that mimics the color of gingerbread.
5. Next, trim the surfaces with faux candies, drywall tape, glue, and white puff paint.
6. Use unwound cotton balls for cotton candy or cupcake icing and Styrofoam beads for sweet lighting to trim the barn with fake sugary goodness!
7. Add painted highlights to your artificial chocolate details.
8. Squeeze on white puff paint icing to accent details.
9. Give the ornament a final coat of Mod Podge if you like.

See the gingerbread silo and barn from four sides.

Left, faux chocolate cow. next, faux chocolate Christmas tree. Center, icing covered
silo roof. Right, a tiny wreath with twinkling stars hangs above the barn door entrance.

What the ornament looked like in progress prior to it's painting and trim.

tape a wire into place inside the underside of the box top so that it
 can be firmly attached to a limb on your Christmas tree.

Craft a red-nosed reindeer with little ones...

Rudolf, the red-nosed walnut head.

       Rudolf is a very popular character around here so I guess we were eventually going to make him from a walnut shell. See how he is made from just about everything else by following the links.

• Make Rudolf using craft sticks here
• Make Rudolf using construction paper here
• Leaping reindeer clip art
• Shape and bake a reindeer cake
• Cut, color and fold a reindeer paper toy
• Color in a friendly reindeer picture

Supply List:

• walnut half
• decorative paper for backing
• scrap cardboard
• acrylic paints
• red pom-pom
• puff paint
• tacky white glue

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. An adult must cut a walnut in half for this craft in advance of a child making it, unless you just happen to find a half of a walnut. The cutting of these nuts can be slippery, so do this part of the craft cautiously. Go to the post to see how I sliced the walnuts in half.
2. Place the walnut shell on top of a scrap piece of cardboard and draw both around the sell and include the reindeer's antlers on that same cardboard. Cut out this shape and glue it to the back, flat slide of the walnut using tacky white glue.
3. Paint the walnut shell and antler's with acrylics. I used several shades of brown.
4. Glue on the red pom-pom for Rudolf's nose.
5. Using puff paints squeeze on the white's of the reindeer's eyes, let dry and then squeeze on the center pupils using black puff paint.
6. Sandwich a wire hook between decorative paper and the cardboard backing and glue.

Crafting Ornaments with Cinnamon Salt Dough

Left, the finished result after painting on white faux icing. Right, some of the cinnamon dough
was reserved for shaping into pretend chocolates. These were then glued inside of tin foil sleeves.
Cinnamon salt dough looks just like gingerbread once it is painted! 

       To make cinnamon salt dough you will need to kneed together 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of ordinary salt, 1/4 cup of cinnamon or more and 1 cup of cool water. Sift together the dry ingredients first and then slowly add the water. Add flour to a wooden cutting board and kneed the dough on top of it. Put it into a refrigerator to rest for a couple of hours. Then roll out the dough approximately 1/2 inch and cut with cookie cutters. Put these cut-outs on a cookie sheet and let them dry out in a low temperature oven for about 3 hours. You can prick the surface as these salt dough ornaments dry to prevent air bubbles if you like and you can make a hole through the top of each ornament to have a place for a hook or ribbon to hang them on a tree. I also used cookie molds to craft some of my own cinnamon salt dough ornaments shown here.

Left, the gingerbread salt dough cooling down on a cookie rack. Some of them puffed up
too much so these were tossed. Right, some wooden cookie molds were also used in 
this project.

Left, a mouse then a little man next, a Christmas chocolate and candy cane hang on our tree.

Above are three gingerbread children holding hands.

More Delightful Gingerbread:

• Make a gingerbread castle for your dolls to decorate with inside of the dollhouse
• Color my gingerbread angel from Color The Bible for kids

Sew a "Tear Drop" Santa with Button Limbs

A very 80s/90s homespun button Santa

        This tear-drop shaped Santa once hung on my mother's tree. I made it based upon a similar one I once saw in the home of a friend. It is very vintage 1980s/90s looking. Around that time folk-like and primitive items for tree decorations were very popular. If you have an ample supply of buttons without matching pairs or sets, this is one way you can use these up. He is a little strange looking for my tastes now but to each his own when decorating a tree, right? 

       Supplies you will need to make an ornament like this one: scraps of plaid fabric, lots of buttons, tiny bit of faux fur, small two inch square of flesh colored felt, strand of white yarn for beard, cotton batting,  bit of red paint for his cheeks and needle with thread.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

• Cut two identical shaped tear-drops from the scrap plaid fabric. 
• With right sides together sew a straight seam around the two shapes together leaving a one inch gap to turn the right sides out and stuff with cotton.
• Sew the opening shut after stuffing using an invisible stitch. 
• Sew on fur trim a little lower than the top of the tear shaped, stuffed form to imply a fur-trimmed hat. 
• Use the same fur to top off the tip of the Santa hat with a ball.
• Cut face out from felt and sew it just below the fur trimmed hat. 
• Add the button eyes, nose and paint the cheeks.
• Loop the yarn directly onto the face for a beard and sew this in place. Trim it as you like.
• Now gather all of those odd buttons and string them together for Santa's arms and legs. Attach these firmly with needle and thread.

Similar Ornament Crafts from The 1980s and 90s: 

• Retro Craft Dreams shares her vintage 80s craftmas projects
• DIY sewn primitive Santa ornament by Painting Crafty - this kind of ornament was very popular in the 1990s
• Cut and sew vintage Christmas prints here - more vintage prints from our family collection