New House Key Ornament

There was a Christmas miracle last night!  Santa put something in everyone’s stocking!  Boof was the first to realize it and was pawing at the gate that was shut to room where the stocking are.  Finally, I went over to check and there was a dentastix in Boof’s stocking, a piece of candy in mine, and a gift box in Lo’s!  I told Lo that maybe Kelley snuck in our house while we were at work. 

Upon opening, he found this:

The jig was up, and obviously it wasn’t Santa.  Or Kelley – because she would have given me something better than a piece of candy.  And Lo isn’t her true love.  Actually we discussed the other day how it’s a good thing that Lo and Kelley don’t own dogs together because they would let them get away with everything!

So I busted out this ornament while Lo was at his friends house.  Working with clay is way harder than I expected, though the project is pretty simple.  After realizing that I couldn’t even really knead the clay to get started, once I got it into some sort of clump, I finally decided to heat it with the blowdryer to soften it.  That helped a litte, but I still had to roll it around on the counter a lot (like a snake) (side note for chuck and kelley, I just typed “like a snack”) and the I rolled it with a rolling pin.  Luckily a few weeks ago Kelley sent home a little Pampered Chef rolling pin thing that she didn’t want, because it was the perfect size and the clay didn’t stick to it like I was concerned would happen with a wooden pin.

I preheated the oven to 300 degrees, like the package of clay said (it was $1.99 at Hobby Lobby, by the way).  Once I got it rolled out into a big enough shape for the cookie cutter, I cut it out, imprinted our house key onto it and made the hole with a straw for the ribbon.

Actually, I didn’t make the hole for the straw until after it was in the oven for a few minutes and I remembered.  I pulled it back out and made the straw poke.  It cracked a tiny bit above the straw (only on the front) because it had started to harden, so I made a little patch with the leftover clay, which is why it looked a little funny above the hole.  So just don’t do it that way. 

After 10 minutes on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, I pulled it out, let it cool, and tied the ribbon through it.  I was worried about writing the date on it because I have notoriously bad hand writing – like a 3rd grader.  But it turned out okay.  I did go over the writing again with the fine tip marker, so in real life, the writing looks a little blacker. 

This is a cute idea that I saw on Pinterest that you could do with a variety of items – wedding rings if clay wouldn’t hurt them, a cross or other charm, or whatever would mean something to you.