Handmade Dough Ornaments: Epic Fail
Over the course of the next week or so I was going to make and show you all of the lovely dough ornaments I've found and pinned since the last holiday season:
Cinnamon dough (source)
Corn starch dough (source)
Salt dough (source)
All of these types of dough have few ingredients and then you roll them out and cut them with cutters and press shapes into them. Not bad, right? Easy enough that Gus and I could make them and it would be a fun project, right? Right??
Wrong. I have determined that unless you are able to work in a closed environment with no other people around, and you have the entire Martha Stewart craft collection (for every possible media) and a really steady hand, these are not easy or fun. Gus and I only got so far as the cinnamon and corn starch dough so I can't tell you anything about the salt dough, but let's just say that both seemed to mix up ok but then when it came time to roll them, they were sticking to everything and no combination of adding extra this or that seemed to help. We only had one round biscuit cutter because I thought we had others but apparently we didn't, and we tried stamping them but that was a mild disaster. It just didn't work for us.
Does this mean you shouldn't give the dough ornaments a try? Not necessarily. You may have a more suitable environment and more patience than I. You may be kid-free. You may actually be Martha Stewart. And in those cases, I'm sure these will turn out just like the pictures.
As for us, we managed to salvage a few, which became decorations for the preschool teachers' gifts:
Not beautiful or perfect, but handmade with love and frustration nonetheless.
I just read an article about Pinterest Tutorials gone bad and it was just a bunch of pictures of people attempting various tutorials and they ended up awful. However, your tags don't look bad at all. They actually look really good for the first attempt.
ReplyDeleteTrust me - those look good! I'm actually guest posting on another blog today with a slightly different variation of a cinnamon ornament recipe. But overall, what I've found works best is to use a little extra cinnamon like you would use flour with cookies just to keep things from sticking. Here's the link to the post: http://kedarhower.blogspot.com/2012/12/holiday-crafts-meg-from-borrowed-heaven.html
ReplyDeleteI totally tried these too! Mine were terrible! Besides looking like a 5 year old made them, they kept braking after they were baked. I threw them all away and hung my head in crafting diva shame. Glad to see I'm not the only one lol!
ReplyDeleteMy salt dough ornaments were a major fail, too. The ones you salvaged look really cute, though, so it wasn't a complete bust. :-)
ReplyDeleteI got the dough to mix up okay, but once they started to bake they puffed up in the middle! So I tried it again, kneading for longer this time to get that pesky air out, and about half of them still got wonky. Sigh. It was too messy to keep trying again, so I just gave up.
too damn funny. apparently you're not alone. love reading other's comments. don't sweat it. move on. plus, i think Miss Susan is going to LOVe hers.
ReplyDeleteMy sister got the Martha Stewart gene. I don't even attempt these projects anymore. I know Gus's teacher will appreciate the ornaments - they are very cute! Kudos to you for trying!
ReplyDeleteIt is so wonderful to hear about craft mishaps. I have so many, and often feel like I am "crafting deficient". The ones you posted look beautiful though!
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