My Simply Earth box this month came with a recipe for Homemade Christmas Ornaments scented with essential oils, which sounded like a fun project to do with my son. I think I enjoyed it a bit more than he did, as his favorite part ended up being smashing the ornaments that showed the slightest cracks. I’ll share the recipe for making the ornaments yourself if you’d like to get crafty with the kiddo this holiday season. (essential oils optional)

The Simply Earth Essential Oil Recipe Box is a carefully curated package that not only brings the benefits of aromatherapy and but also supports a sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle. You can use my link and code GEEKFREE to get a $45 gift card with your first order! 

Recipe for Homemade Christmas Ornaments

These ornaments are made with dough, then baked for a long time and painted. It’s recommended to seal them with a clear spray paint (or some type of sealant) when done. I tried the recipe in the Simply Earth box and failed miserably, so I used my favorite basic dough recipe:

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup white flour

1/4 cup water

Essential oils for fragrance

Mix everything together but save the oils to add to the back of your ornaments when finished. The dough will form a ball that you can roll out and use cookie cutters to cut out your ornament shapes. Make sure to poke a hole at the top of each one so you can hang it on the tree.

Once you have all your ornaments cut out, you’ll need to bake them in the oven at 200 degrees for three hours. Yes, that seems like a long time, but it’s necessary. I tried it for two hours and they were still a bit soft.

We saved the painting for the next day since they took so long to bake. You can use any kind of paint- we went with acrylics and they did well on the baked dough.

You can paint both sides, or paint one side and seal the back with a clear sealant or clear spray paint. The ornaments will last for a really long time when sealed. I still have some that I made about 30 years ago! I found out of you don’t seal them, bugs may nibble at them because they are made from food products. So be sure to seal them if you want to hang them on your Christmas tree!

The dough made way more ornaments than we needed, so my son had fun trying to smash the extra ones. He found them surprisingly resilient.

The last step was adding drops of essential oils to make them smell wonderful. The Simply Earth box has fun recipes like this each month, always centered around a theme. I recommend checking it out if you like DIY crafts and natural ingredients. And be sure to use my link and code GEEKFREE to get a $45 gift card with your first order! 

Bonus Idea: Dough Hand Ornament

You can also make cute hand ornaments! We made these when my son was a toddler. You press their hand into the dough and then paint it to look like Santa. Click here to read how that went!