My SIL and nieces have made these before and when I requested a craft day together she thought this would be a good idea. I am SO glad she suggested it.
Fresh Bay leaves (from her tree), dried oranges, cinnamon balls and cinnamon sticks. I added orange and cinnamon essential oils when I was done.
Directions for this are pretty self explanatory I do believe. The most time consuming parts are making your cinnamon balls (if you so desire to use these), drying the oranges and picking a pattern for the garland. I suggest you search for images of garland before hand and play around with a pattern to see what you like best. Although I LOVE what I made I might do a few things different next year.
For the cinnamon balls I used a recipe I found online. Adding some glue to this recipe would help form the balls easier.
Cinnamon Balls:
(1) Dump the entire container of ground cinnamon in a bowl (I used the 4.12 oz container...this makes a bunch).
(2) Add just a tablespoon or so of applesauce to the bowl of cinnamon and mix. Add applesauce one spoonful at time and mix after each spoonful ... you want to end up with a "dough" that you can roll in a ball and handle easily. I also added in a bit of flour to help make the "dough" easier to handle. I ended up using about 3/4 cup of applesauce and just a smidge of flour!! It doesn't take much and the more you add the whiter the mixture will become!
*Since I did not use glue, but do feel it would help hold things together, play around with it. Start with just a tad and see how the "dough" looks/feels.
3) Pull off a small chunk of cinnamon dough, roll in the palm of your hands to form a ball, use a toothpick or thick needle to poke a hole through the ball so you can "thread" it onto your garland when it's dry.
4) Lay on a wire rack and let dry overnight. Flipping over as needed. Mine took a good two days to fully dry and become hard.
Drying Oranges:
Simply slice orange and place on a wire rack on a cookie sheet. When using the wire rack you exposing both sides to the heat. I set my oven at 250 and left them in for about 2 hours. And there you go...dried oranges.
I dried at least 5 oranges and as you can see from my garland I only needed 3 slices. You could add more if you wanted especially if your garland is going to be longer. Threading the oranges this way took up some room so I only needed three. And as my SIL taught me the way we threaded them light comes through the oranges.....especially if you make one to hang in a window. My kitchen windows are way to big to do this, but the mirror catches light and it really looks pretty. So with all the oranges I have left you just may be seeing more crafts with dried oranges!!!!
I just love how it turned out!! And sitting on the couch I can smell all these amazing scents. And the essential oils!
Can't wait to make this again next year!!! Thanks Renee, Lindsey and Lauren for all your help and love you gave me last Wednesday!
2 comments:
We had fun, and it looks perfect there on the mirror.
Love Love Love it! I just have to make one of these with the kids ♥
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