Mine Don't Look Like That......

Ok, well, I made the cookies, but mine didn't turn out quite the same as her picture.....

 I mean, they aren't finished yet, I know....the color will probably even out if I put a sealer on them, and I did rinse them off after they were completely cooled, and they look better wet....so we'll see!  They were VERY easy, so I can make another batch if I want to try again.  I told my daughter that it might be fun to make a gingerbread house with this dough, then we could paint it and decorate it and KEEP it!! :-D  So we might do that too!

Here's how it all went ---
Yesterday, I mixed up the dough.....

The recipe calls for shortening, but I NEVER use shortening so I don't have any!  I used the same amount of vegetable oil, and it worked out fine! :-D  So I stirred up the oil, molasses and sugar -- it was hard for me to use real food, when I knew we weren't going to eat it!  It felt like I was wasting it all!! LOL

After that, I mixed up the flour and baking soda, and the spices - cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg.....

It smells so good!!! :-D
Mix it into the molasses/sugar mix -- it's really dry and sticky.....

It needs the water now!....

Now it's just sticky! :-D
I popped it into the fridge to sit overnight!

Today, Emily wanted to help me with the cookies (yay!)....I have lots of cutters, in a huge paper mache container (which I really should paint and stencil, right!?), so I picked the ones I wanted to use this time.....

We rolled out the dough....it was really sticky, so we spread out flour and cinnamon.....

......and cut out the shapes!

I poked holes in them, and used peppercorns for the eyes and buttons of the "people" -- I just happened to have whole peppercorns around! LOL  I didn't think much of the flour that covered them, because she didn't mention that in her instructions (but she said to USE flour) so I thought it would get absorbed during baking (like other cookies I've made).....WRONG!

This is AFTER baking....NOT the look I wanted!  Also, note how much they puffed up -- before baking, when we were rolling them out, I was worried that we had made them too thin, so I made sure to keep the dough at 1/4 inch thick.  I am glad that our first batch was more like 1/8 inch, because I want to hang those and the others were TOO thick for a garland - look at that!  The holes that I had made in them before baking also closed up a little during baking, so I went back over them with a toothpick....I had to be careful, because these came out pretty hard right away, so they were easy to crack!  Note to self: use a straw next time!! :-D

As for the flour, I tried wiping it off with a wet sponge but it didn't really work.  So, I ran them under the water quickly (after they had completely cooled)!  THAT worked.....

....but it made them a little soft again, so I put them all back in a low oven (275) for about 10 minutes.  Then I left them to cool and now dry for the whole night.  It was really fun!!  I love them! :-D  I keep checking them and picking them up -- I love that they are basically permanent!  I'm going to leave the people plain, but I want to paint the other shapes we made, maybe with a t-shirt paint, the kind that stays puffed up - that will look like icing! :-D  We were also talking about how much fun it would be to make a gingerbread house this way, too....that would be an exciting project, right?!!  What a great decoration that would be!

SO, anyway, here is step one with these "cookies".....I'm going to buy the paint tomorrow! :-D
I also created some other ornaments, from my box, but I don't know if they are "homespun" enough.....

Aren't they pretty?  The beaded ones I made last year, and just left them in the box!  But the star-shaped ornaments are so easy, and I hung a small glass ball from the tops - I love the silver and pink!!

I have a few more ideas, so I'll see what I come up with!  Check back tomorrow night!! ^-^