How to Make Clay Ornaments That Look Like Candy & Cookies

Cookie ornaments can be used every year if they are created with clay.

Christmas tree ornaments often take the form of holiday sweets, like cookies and candy, in addition to the traditional garland, bulbs and tinsel. Hanging actual cookies and candies on the tree can be wasteful, and the cookies do not usually stay fresh. You can create cookie and candy ornaments to hang on your tree with polymer clay, which bakes in a household oven rather than a commercial kiln.

Things You'll Need

• Polymer clay in several colors
• Rolling pin
• Cutting board
• Cookie cutters
• Baking sheet
• Wire ornament hooks
• Toothpick
• Oven

Instructions

Cookies

1. Soften a block of white or brown polymer clay with your hands by squeezing, pulling and smashing it several times. This will be your clay cookie dough.

2. Place the softened clay onto the center of a cutting board and roll over it with a rolling pin several times until it is an even 1/4-inch layer.

3. Press cookie cutters into the clay to cut out shapes. Remove the pieces and set them aside on a baking sheet.

4. Roll small pieces of other colors of clay into snake-like form and press them over the cut-out shapes to resemble icing that you would pipe onto cookies to decorate them.

Candy

1. Form small pieces of clay into candy shapes, or parts of candy shapes. To create a candy cane, for example, roll a white snake-like form and a red snake-like form.

2. Pinch the red and white pieces together at one end so they hang together when you hold the pinch.

3. Twist the clay pieces around each other to create the swirl of the candy cane.

Finishing The Ornaments

1. Poke a hole into each ornament with a toothpick before baking.

2. Unbend the small loop at the base of a wire ornament hook and poke it through the toothpick hole in an ornament. Bend the loop back together to secure it on the ornament. Do this for each ornament you made.

3. Preheat the oven according to the packaging instructions on your clay. Different brands and types have different baking temperatures, which also may be referred to as "firing temperatures" on the package.

4. Place all of your ornaments on a baking sheet and place them in the preheated oven for the amount of time the clay packaging suggests. Check them every 5 minutes or so, as thinner pieces will be finished much sooner than thicker ones.