Do it Yourself

Decorative Valentine Cookies

 This is a great inexpensive way to involve your kids in holiday decorating. We began with a basic recipe for homemade clay and two heart shaped cookie cutters (one slightly larger than the other). The clay is very white when you get done making it. I divided the dough and then kneaded in gel food coloring to tint the dough to fit my needs. (ie. brown for cookie base. pink, blue, and yellow for the cookie frosting)

Cookie: Working with the portion of dough that has been tinted to look like the cookie base, roll dough out to approximately 1/4 inch thick. Then use the larger of the two cookie cutters and cut out large hearts. Set the cookies aside.

Frosting: For the frosting take the portions of dough tinted to look like frosting. Roll the dough out as thin as possible. Then use the smaller cookie cutter and cut out hearts.

Use a pastry brush to brush a little water on the top of each cookie base (the water acts like glue to adhere the frosting). Then place the smaller frosting heart on top of each cookie base. Put all cookies on a flat service and allow them to dry for 1-3 days. When cookies are dry and hard, seal them with a clear coat. I used mod podge. Let dry. Then if you desire apply on more coat of mod podge just on frosting portion of cookie and sprinkle with white or clear glitter. Allow to dry completely then use them as you like.

Framed Christmas Silhouettes 

These are really easy to make. The hardest part is finding the silhouette art to use. I found the oval frames and Hobby Lobby then just using a printer printed the images on scrapbook paper of my choice. I loved the way they turned out on the  paper that looked like old Christmas sheet music. 
Just right click on the images below then open them up in a word document and make them the size that you need to fit your project.

when I opened this in a word document I inverted the colors making the people and landscape black instead of white and all the negative space white instead of black. It made a much better silhouette.