DIY: Baked Cinnamon Ornaments

It has been way too long since our last DIY post. So we decided to make this one extra easy. This is a great DIY activity for the holiday season because it will literally make your entire house smell like Christmas.

What you need:
1 1/2 Cups Cinnamon (grab it at the dollar store)
1 Cup Apple Sauce
2 Tablespoons Ground Cloves
Twine (to hang the finished product)
Toothpick
Cookie Cutters

Directions:

• Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Mix 1 cup of the cinnamon and 1 cup of the apple sauce together in a medium bowl. Really mix it…you might have to get in there with your hands. If the mixture seems too dry, add more apple sauce or more cinnamon if it seems to wet. You want the whole mixture to clump together in one big dough ball.
• Add the ground cloves and continue to mix it all together.
• Sprinkle some cinnamon on the counter (like if you were rolling out cookies on flour) and roll out your mixture to a 1/4 inch thickness. If the dough is too wet, it will make a huge mess and stick to the rolling pin (just add more cinnamon to take care of this problem).
• Use your star cookie cutter to cut out shapes (I used stars, but you could do hearts, trees, etc).
• Place the stars on a cookie sheet with a silpat. The stars can be really close together; they won't rise in the oven.
• Using a toothpick, carefully make a hole in each star. 
• Stick the ornaments in the oven for 1.5 hours or more allowing the juice from the applause to evaporate. The range in cooking time depends on the humidity in your house, humidity and climate. They should be rock hard!
• Take ornaments out of the oven and loop a string through each of the holes to hang on a tree, attach to a package or string together to make garland. Enjoy!