DIY Spice Ornament Craft for Fall and Christmas Decorating
This DIY spice ornament craft means holiday craft time is here! Warning: this post is full of gorgeous, no-bake Christmas ornaments and the easiest applesauce cinnamon spice dough ever.
What You'll Find On This Page
DIY Spice Ornaments – No Bake Cinnamon Ornaments
Here at Ruffles and Rain Boots, I can say I now have the perfect cinnamon ornament recipe for the absolute no-bake ornament dough. It’s a big claim, but hear me out.
This is literally the easiest Christmas ornament dough you’ll make. Cinnamon and applesauce ornaments? Anyone with kids has those two items on hand at all times and if I don’t have to make a special trip to a store for crazy ingredients, that makes me happy.
Do Cinnamon and Applesauce Ornaments Last?
If you’re going to craft handmade holiday decorations, you might as well get a lot of use from them. Ours have lasted 9 years so far with the exception of one I accidentally forgot to pack up after Christmas. I tossed it in April because I knew I wasn’t putting it with the other Christmas ornaments in the attic…
Speaking of the finished goods, here are a few ways we have used our spice ornaments:
- individual Christmas tree ornaments
- string them all together and hang
- add a few tied onto a pre-made seasonal pine garland or wreath
- thoughtful, handmade holiday gifts for grandparents and my daughter’s nanny
- we put the glazed ones outside on the front door’s wreath (we used mini cookie cutters)
- as decorations (and tags) for presents (see notes below for alteration)
What You Need for Applesauce and Cinnamon Ornament Dough
This might go without saying to you, but do tell the little ones to not eat these. There’s glue in ’em and though it’s non-toxic, just yuck. They spell really, really good.
- 1 cup ground cinnamon
- 2 Tbsp. ground allspice (optional)
- 2 Tbsp. ground nutmeg (optional)
- 1 cup applesauce
- 2 Tbsp. white glue
- drinking straw (or large diameter treat stick)
- ribbon or twine for hanging ornaments
- cookie cutters (anything between 2.5 and 4 inches works best)
- rolling pin
- wax paper or parchment paper
- magnets (optional)
- glaze, puffy paint, glitter glue (for decorating, optional)
How to Make No Bake Spice Ornaments for Garlands, Christmas Trees, and Decor
Mix cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, applesauce, and glue in a large bowl until well blended. The mixture will become a little stiff, but it smells amazing!
Form the dough into a ball and place it on a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper. Roll out the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness.
TIP: If the rolling pin sticks to the dough sprinkle it with cinnamon or add a very, very small amount of applesauce to be worked into the dough.
Using cookie cutters, cut out the dough in desired shapes. We love leaves, acorns, and woodland animals for fall garlands. Our favorite Christmas spice ornaments are thicker shapes such as stars, bells, and trees.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the leftover dough until you have used up as much dough as you can. There will be some leftover you can use to make accent beads. Keep the dough under plastic wrap while you’re working with it to avoid it drying out.
For ornaments, use the straw to poke a hole for hanging. Place the hole at the top of your ornaments to thread the ribbon for hanging, but keep it about 1/4 inch away from the top edge. If you’re making magnets, there is no need for a hole.
Place ornaments on a flat surface to air dry; a cookie cooling rack works best because it lets the air get under the ornaments for faster drying. If you don’t have a wire rack, use a baking sheet. Let them completely dry for 48-72 hours, turning them over halfway through the drying period.
If you want to dry your DIY spice ornaments a little faster, put them in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees for about 2.5 hours.
Once they are dry, thread the ribbon or twine through the hole and tie in a knot. If you choose to make magnets, place a self-adhesive magnet to the back (or just get these inexpensive magnets and use the best glue out there).
How to Decorate: This Cinnamon Ornaments Recipe is STURDY
If you need to see what you have on hand, you can use a glaze (see below) to decorate your spice ornaments using puffy paint, glitter glue, or even beads (if pressed in while dough is soft).
Commercial puffy paint is SO easy to work with (for you and for the little ones) and it is contained. I love the puffy paint bottles because the little ones also get some grip practice in while decorating. Glitter glue is another option for this, but it doesn’t cover as well as the paint.
DIY Spice Ornament Craft for Fall and Christmas Decorating
This DIY spice ornament craft means holiday craft time is here! Cinnamon and applesauce combine with a bit of glue for a no-bake, air dry ornament safe for all ages. They smell amazing and last a lifetime.
Materials
- 1 cup ground cinnamon
- 2 Tbsp. ground allspice (optional)
- 2 Tbsp. ground nutmeg (optional)
- 1 cup applesauce
- 2 Tbsp. white glue
- drinking straw (or large diameter treat stick)
- ribbon or twine for hanging (optional)
- stick on magnet backings (optional)
Tools
- cookie cutters
- rolling pin
- wax paper or parchment paper
- cookie drying rack or baking sheet
- glaze (optional) or puffy paint (optional)
Instructions
- Mix cinnamon, spices (if using), applesauce, and glue in a large bowl until well blended. The mixture will become stiff. Use a little more applesauce if your mix isn't pliable (it should be like a pie or pizza dough).
- Form the dough into a ball and place it on a sheet of wax or parchment paper. Let your little ones roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick (3.5 cm).
- Using cookie cutters, cut dough out in desired shapes. Our favorite Christmas spice ornaments are thicker shapes such as stars, bells, and trees.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 with leftover dough until you have used up as much dough as you can. There will be some left over you can use to make accent beads by rolling thick balls and piercing them with a skewer or thin straw.
- For ornaments, use the straw to poke a hole at the top of your ornaments to thread the ribbon for hanging, keeping about 1/4 inch away from the top edge. If you’re making magnets, skip this step.
- Place ornaments on a flat surface to air dry; a cookie cooling rack works best. Let them dry for 48-72 hours, turning them over halfway through the drying period.
- If you want to dry your DIY spice ornaments faster, place them in an oven at 200 degrees for about 2.5 hours.
- Once they are dry, thread the ribbon or twine through the hole and tie in a knot. If you choose to make magnets, place a self-adhesive magnet to the back (or just get these inexpensive magnets and use the best glue out there).
Notes
This easy cinnamon ornament is a staple and can be used for fall or Christmas decorations.
Troubleshooting Tips for Cinnamon Spice Ornaments:
- If the spice dough is too wet, it will stick to the parchment or wax paper, so start with the recommended amount of applesauce only adding if it is dry.
- The glue helps these ornaments stay quite strong, so do not substitute it for water or another liquid. School glue works and is inexpensive.
- Use plastic wrap to cover the dough while the little ones work with their cutouts.
- There is no difference in our ornaments air dried versus baked in the oven.
- If you're making package tags and NOT ornaments, roll the cinnamon and applesauce dough to 1/8th inch thick. It will be less sturdy, but you can get a lot from this batch. If you have a holiday stamp set, press into the dough after cutting and while still wet for an indented look.
More Dough Recipes for Christmas Ornaments
If you want to explore the world of DIY Christmas ornaments with kids, be sure to pop over to my favorite recipe from Rainy Day Mum. It is by far the best salt dough recipe I’ve tried and comes out perfectly every time for us.
She also shares so many different ways to scent, color, and craft with salt dough. And I really want to try her microwave salt dough recipe.
More Kid-Friendly DIY Christmas Ornaments
- DIY Rustic Snowman Ornaments – Use Dollar Tree supplies to make these adorable little snowmen with a twist.
- Letter to Santa Ornaments – These are EASY and fun – the kids will look for them each day to see if the letter has been delivered. :)
- Baby Yoda Mini Clay Pot Ornament – Everyone’s favorite Jedi-in-the-making can adorn the tree, too.
Please Save or Share
Pop in a comment on how you’d use, gift, or decorate with these cinnamon and applesauce spice ornaments. Save them to your favorite holiday pin board or share them to a crafting group on Facebook. I sincerely appreciate your shares.
Could this dough be made in advance? If so how would you recommend storing it.
I’m sorry, Mary, I’ve never made it in advance and stored it. I would say that it might work if stored with no air for a couple of days (so in a pressed out zip top plastic bag, for example), however, that is not an experiment I’ve done.
My consistency is so wet. I followed recipe to a T. Where did I go wrong?
It might be the applesauce you used? That’s the only thing I can think where it would go wrong. You could try reducing it to 3/4 cup or increase the amount of cinnamon to 1.5 cups.
We just made these again for a few mail-away package tags and I used the oven method for these because we had to get them to the post office.
But no, the mixture shouldn’t be too wet.
Love these! Have you tried decorating any of them? Glitter glue, sequins, etc?
My daughter used puffy paint (the bottle kind with the thin, built-in tip) and they worked well. We stored them and found that it lasted for this year’s tree, so I know they at least stay on that long. :)
Is it possible to use only other ground spices instead of cinnamon at all? I’ve discovered a quantity of expired spices… in my pantry! 😁 TNX
You know, nutmeg would be a great one. I am not sure if you have that in your expired supply, but rosemary would be good, too. For that one, however, you’d have to grind it into a powder.
Looking forward to making these! Just wondering about how many one batch will make if you use a 3 to 4 in cookie cutter. Thank you
Nikki,
I would say that this single batch would only make 4 or 5 of that size, depending on the shape. You can whip up a double batch, though. We used the excess scraps to make beads for our little ornaments because it doesn’t keep rolling out well time-after-time. Hope that helps!
Thank you so much for this recipe!! Late night internet worked!! Been trying to find this, my last heart for my tree broke and I love the smell of these!!!
The smell is amazing, isn’t it? I’m so glad you were able to make some new spice ornaments!
This was so fun for my grand babies ! I I found that the goal is to make the dough about the same consistency or a bit dryer than play dough, then roll out between 2 sheets of parchment paper, at very least 1/4 in thick , this is where buying cinnamon in bulk pays off.. I didn’t have any allspice on hand however pumpkin pie spice worked nicely. Thanks!
How much fun. I made something similar to these about 40 years ago and still have them. But my recipe bakes them. They don’t smell wonderful anymore unless I scratch them.
Linda
I can’t wait to try the baked ones next. We did the salt dough ornaments years ago and they still hang on our tree, fresh and bright white. Hopefully these last as long. Thanks for stopping by, Linda!