Will you be decorating a tree this year for your Yule celebrations? There are all kinds of things you can hang on it! Try making a batch of cinnamon spell ornaments as a fun and magical holiday project.
For starters, let’s be clear about one thing – these ornaments may be made with cinnamon, but they are NOT edible, so make sure you hang them out of reach of hungry pets or roaming bands of feral toddlers.
Let’s talk a little bit about cinnamon. It smells good, sure, and it tastes delicious… but what else is it good for? Cinnamon has been used in a variety of ways for thousands of years. The Romans burned it in funeral ceremonies, believing that the aroma was sacred and pleasing to the gods. Because it was hard to come by, during the Middle Ages, wealthy Europeans made sure to serve cinnamon at feasts so their guests would know that no expense had been spared. Now, fortunately for us, you can buy powdered cinnamon in bulk just about anywhere.
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 Cup cinnamon
¾ Cup applesauce
1 Tbs. nutmeg
1 Tbs. ground cloves
1 Tbs. allspice
2 Tbs. plain white glue
This recipe makes about a dozen ornaments, depending on the size of your cutouts.
Mix all of your ingredients in a bowl. You can start out stirring them with a fork or spoon, but as the mixture gets thick and dough-like, just give in and use your hands to mush it all together. Squash it around until you can form a nice big sticky ball of dough – if it seems like it may be too dry, you can always add a little more applesauce, or a teaspoon of water.
As you’re blending the dough together with your hands, think about your intent. What is the purpose of the ornaments you’re about to craft? Are they for protection? To bring well-being and health? For financial prosperity and abundance? Think about the goal, and send those intentions through your hands into the dough as you mix it.
Sprinkle a clean surface – if you have a baker’s mat for rolling, use it – with cinnamon, and roll out the dough until it’s about ¼” thick, and use your favorite magical cookie cutters to cut out the dough. You can choose random holiday shapes, or drag out those old gingerbread man cookie cutters to make little people for your ornaments. Cut out house shapes for ornaments that focus on security and family stability. Use hearts for love, and so forth.
Make a hole in the top of each ornament – use a toothpick or skewer –so you can hang it up after it’s been baked.
Now, here’s where you get to make some additional magic. Remember how you focused your intent into the dough as you blended it? We’re also going to add magical symbols to it. On each ornament, use a toothpick or small paring knife to inscribe a symbol of your intent. You can use any kind of symbol at all that’s meaningful to you, but here are a few ideas to get you started:
Financial prosperity: dollar signs
Protection: an ankh, a horseshoe, a gate
Security and stability: pentacles, earth symbols
Passion and love: hearts, fire symbols
Wisdom and intuition: moons, yin-yangs
Once you’ve inscribed your ornaments with symbols, place them on a baking sheet in the oven. Leave them in there on a low temperature, around 200, for several hours – the goal is not to bake them so much as just dry them out completely. Once they’re dry, let them cool all the way down.
Finally, thin a little bit of white glue with some water, and brush a light layer over the top surface of each ornament, to give it a nice glaze. Once the glaze has dried completely, thread a string or ribbon through the hole, and hang it on your holiday tree – or give it as a gift to someone you care about!
Tip: Another option, rather than inscribing the ornaments with a symbol, is to use icing piped into place. Use your favorite decorative piping tip to create sigils on your ornament AFTER you’ve dried and cooled them. Once your icing has dried completely, apply the coating of thinned glue for a glaze.