super-easy, fabulously sparkly, no-mess ornaments

Each year, I've tried to have my kiddos create a gift for our family members. Okay, when they were super-tiny, I slapped their cute faces on ceramic ornaments, but now that I've got a crafty 6, 4, and 2-year-old, I'm putting them to work.

And really, the time we spend together working on our projects rocks, and they all love creating beautiful art for people they love.

Only this past spring did our family discover the joys of Model Magic--it's by Crayola and is every parent's dream.

It's a no-mess, easy-to-use modeling clay with bright, mixable colors, and it air-dries after only a day or two. And it doesn't stain. And it never flakes off and ends up in the carpet like Play-doh. And kids can color on it with markers. Or glue stuff to it, and it sticks like whaaaat.

So after I saw this idea on Frugal Family Fun (a new blog I have only recently discovered and totally heart), I decided to follow Valerie's lead and use Model Magic for our homemade ornaments this year. Her idea was awesome, and we just took her idea a step further and blinged ours up a bit.

(Spoiler alert: family members, close your eyes. . . )

• Model Magic Ornaments: These are seriously super-easy, fabulously sparkly, no-mess ornaments. I love them, and I really think our family will, too.

On Friday afternoon, after Maddy got home from school and everyone had eaten their snacks, I said,

Okay, my friends. We have a lot of work to do today. We are going to put on our ornament-making hats and start some presents for our family. Who's ready?

From that point on, we worked. We rolled out our Model Magic, using my big rolling pin and two tiny ones I picked up (for $1 each!) at the craft store.

Owen was one strong roller!

Then we used our smaller holiday cookie cutters to cut out stars, snowflakes, balls, gift boxes, and trees. I wanted the ornaments to be light and small enough to not break the branches of everyone's trees.

(I actually bought the cheapest, largest pack of holiday cookie cutters I could find at our craft store. And I love them. They do the job--and the big ones are perfect for cutting holiday shapes out of sandwiches!)

Maddy uses her knife--carefully!

Maddy, Owen, and Cora used plastic knives to get their shapes out, and believe me--the shapes were not all perfect.

We decided to use all of the shapes, even the sad-looking ones, and we'd just make sure to give those guys a little extra sparkle.

When we finished most of the blue, green, and white Model Magic and our hands were tired and sore, we used a straw to make tiny holes at the top of each ornament, and then we let our shapes dry.

We waited about two days until our ornaments were totally and completely dry, and we spent a chunk of the morning beautifying. We used glitter glue--which I totally wish I would have invented--and we also added sequins, sparkles, and more glitter glue.

Cora uses a Q-Tip to apply Tacky glue to her ornament.
Then she'll add her sequins!

Before we knew it, every last ornament was covered with sparkle, as were six tiny hands and smocks. The turned out more beautiful than we could have imagined--and they were so easy to make!

One tray of finished--beautiful--ornaments

I wrote M, O, & C--2009 on the backs of the ornaments (that's about all that would fit!), and then we finished our gifts.

The final steps were simple--I tied skinny ribbon on all of the ornaments while Owen and Cora decorated tiny brown bags with Christmas Foamies.

We then made a pile for each of our family members and took turns each picking an ornament for that person. Each person--or family, actually--has four special ornaments in their bag.

So that's that--even though the gift took a few days to complete, the ornaments are gorgeous, the steps were easy, the cost was low, and the time spent together was fun.

Happiest of holidays!

And thanks again to Valerie at The Frugal Family Fun blog for the Model Magic-meets-Christmas idea!