Saturday, December 17, 2011

Homemade Gingerbread Playdough

We made gingerbread playdough today. The kids had a blast making the dough and then rolling and cutting it with cookie cutters.
Here is the recipe:

Gingerbread Playdough
 * Note - I halved the recipe and it worked fine.

4+ cups flour
3/4 cups salt
2 Tbsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp ginger
2 Tbsp instant tea (this is a powdered tea mix that is available in the coffee/tea aisle at the grocery store. I know Licpton makes some.)
2 cups water
1/2 cup oil

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Add wet ingredients and stir. If the dough is sticky, knead in enough flour to make it the desired consistency. (Note - we added a lot more flour so it wasn't so sticky.)
Get out your cookie cutters and playdough tools and have fun!
If the dough starts to get sticky again as the kids are playing with it, just knead in more flour again.

Jesus in the Manger ornament

Materials Needed
Green Card stock
Yellow card stock
cream card stock
Brown card stock
mini wooden craft sticks (available at Walmart & craft stores)
regular or jumbo wooden craft sticks
yellow yarn
foil star stickers
Glue (I used hot glue, but other glue will work.)
 Glue 2 mini sticks to the larger stick. Let dry.

 Turn the stable over and glue on 2 mini sticks to make the roof.
 Trace the shape of the stable on green cardstock. Cut out.  Turn the stable over again and glue the cardstock onto the to side sticks. 

Glue a loop of yarn to the back.
If you are doing this craft with children, an adult might want to prepare the ornament up through this step ahead of time.
Cut out a baby shape from the cream card stock. Cut out a manger from the brown card stock. Cut out a circle from the yellow cardstock. GLue the baby to the manger, then the manger to the bottom of the ornament.
Glue some cut up yellow yarn at the bottom, under the manger. GLue the yellow circle to the top and place a star sticker in the center.