25 Days of Christmas: Day 4

I know it's only the 4th day, but this is the most fun post so far! haha. I have been looking forward to this activity since I first saw it on Pinterest! Now, I'm glad to finally share it!

It's no secret that we love our Maple! She's very loved, and quite the snuggle bug. I can't wait for Santa Paws to come visit her this year ;)  So, when I saw this paw print ornament idea on Pinterest, I knew instantly that we needed to do it!  Just the process itself of getting her to cooperate made it more enjoyable! Plus, homemade, DIY ornaments are fun keepsakes to have!

These ornaments are super easy to make--just 3 ingredients. GETTING the paw print is the hard part!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of water

Directions

1.  Preheat over to 200°.  Combine flour, salt and water in a large bowl.

2. Flip out onto a well floured surface and knead with your hands for a few minutes until the dough is smooth.

 

3. Roll dough out until it is 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Hey, when you don't have a rolling pin...you use whatcha got!

 

4. So, the exact directions said to roll it out, cut out a circle, make the paw print and then put the dough on the cookie sheet lined with wax paper or aluminum foil.  Well, we did it the easier way. We put WHAT LITTLE BIT of aluminum foil (or wax paper) we even had left on the cookie sheet, and rolled the dough out on it. Rolling it out and then transferring it was too difficult to make sure it didn't start to come apart.

5. Then, get your paw prints :)

Poor baby had no idea what we were doing....but she enjoyed all the animal crackers she got for being such a good girl :)

 

And here's what we got! BUT, when we took a glass to cut circles around each paw print, it distorted the paw prints :(  And those were the two best ones we ended up getting :(

So, Plan B. Roll out the dough and cut our the circles first! Then repeat the whole process of getting your paw prints and giving the doggy animal crackers.

 

6. Once you have your paw prints, use a straw to cut a hole at the top of each ornament. 

7. Bake for 2 hours.

And here are our finished ornaments!

They turned out pretty well, but I think we are going to re-do them and try to press her paw into the dough more so you can see the impression better. More animal crackers coming for Maple!

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