Creating Christmas - Peppermint Ornaments

Last year I told my hubby that our small apartment tree was not going to cut it in the new house, so this year I am going from a 6 foot tree to a 9 foot tree. Of course that means I need more decorations and ornaments, but instead of spending a lot on decor that is only up part of the year, I scoured Pinterest for ideas on ornaments I can make.

I fell in love with these peppermint candy ornaments from HelloHomebody and thought how hard can it be?

I had 6 cookie cutters in 3 sizes. In the largest I used 9 peppermints, in the medium I used 3 peppermints, and in the smallest I used 1 peppermint.



It wasn't that hard, but here is what the simple four-step procedure gorgeously depicted on Pinterest doesn't show you:

- Spraying cooking spray on the inside of a cookie cutter is messy and hard to do without a lot of over spray. I sprayed in short bursts and then used a paper towel to help get the spray into the corners of my stars.

- Cookie cutters are not flat against the cookie sheet. I noticed this when I first put them on the cookie sheet, but took a chance to see what would happen. Yes, some of the peppermint candy oozed out underneath the cookie cutter, but I found that I could score it with a toothpick while it was still warm and it would easily break off later. And even the scoring is not always necessary.

- If the candy cooks a bit too long, it will start to bubble up, but as long as it isn't burnt, it still makes a cool ornament. On a couple of batches, the candy was in the oven for a minute or so too long and created a more swirled design.

Out of my 3 batches, I lost about 3 stars which broke completely (too thin?) and I have a couple of stars that points broke off, but I am going to try to repair with glue or modge podge. Since I don't plan to eat mine, I am going to coat them with modge podge or acrylic medium so they aren't so sticky to touch.

The debris pile - mostly from candy that oozed under the cookie cutters and had to be broken off.
I plan to try to reuse it to create some more ornaments.