Turn up the Christmas music, roll up your sleeves, and spend a 'funtastic' evening at home making clay-dough ornaments. Besides decorating the tree, you can pass these along with care packages for neighbors and co-workers, or personalize them to use as gift tags for all your holiday packages. A few cookie cutters, acrylic paints, and basic ingredients already in your kitchen can turn an evening at home with your family into a miniature Santa's workshop. Best of all, family members of all ages can roll the dough into balls and tubes or press cookie cutters into the dough to create everything from snowmen to choo-choo trains. Straightened paper clips work great for poking eyes or adding details. To hang the ornaments, insert a small loop of flexible wire into the top before baking.

Clay Dough Recipe:
1 cup salt
1 cup water
2 cups flour

Mix together. The consistency should be fairly stiff. Add extra flour or water if needed. Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness if using cookie cutters. Cut and shape ornaments. Lift onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for several hours or until hard. Cool. Paint with acrylic paints. When dry, spray with an acrylic sealer or melt paraffin in a double boiler and dip the ornament in it. Hang on the Christmas tree or attach to gifts.

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