I love getting my kids involved in crafting, especially at christmas. At ages 2 and 5 they’re not quite up to sewing yet, although the big kid is a serious oragami and packaging expert, I found a great activity for us a couple of weeks ago. We made clay ornaments out of cornflour and bi-carb soda. Messy… yes. Arguments over who had the biggest ball of clay… of course. Fun factor… all the way up to 11. My kids are so used to using play-doh that they knew exactly what to do, and if an ornament got squished or ruined it was no problem, we’d just roll the clay out again.

We used tooth picks and conifer leaves to emboss the ornaments, I would have loved to get some of those letter stamps to write their names on each one but that will have to wait until next year. I think the penguins are slightly miffed to have some handmade competition on the tree… but they’ll live.

You can find the recipe for the clay over here at Garden Mama.

The verdict

It worked a treat (although note that the oven temperature is listed in farenheight… I made the mistake of thinking it was in celcius and the ornaments warped a little). Slightly stinky while you’re cooking the clay but that smell disappears really quickly after you’re finished.