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Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make with Scratch n Sniff Watercolors

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Today is our second year of joining up with Mama Miss for a blog hop all about Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make! Come check out all the great ornament ideas! Quick note- affiliate links are used in this post.

Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make using Scratch n Sniff Watercolors - Perfect activity for the book The Sweet Smell of Christmas on lalymom.com

For this year's blog hop everyone chose a childrens Christmas book as inspiration for their kid-made ornaments.

We have been on a huge kick of activities to pair with the super sweet vintage book The Sweet Smell of Christmas. So far we have done Christmas Scented Play Dough and Christmas Scented Cloud Dough.

Today I'm sharing our kid-made scratch n sniff watercolor ornaments! Okay there was some help from mama in this case but each child is different and depending the age of your child she or he could complete the whole thing independently.

Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make

To prep this activity, I grabbed some card stock and our copy of the book The Sweet Smell of Christmas. 

Sweet Smell of Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make with Scratch n Sniff Paints on lalymom.com

I flipped to the pages that have the scratch n sniff items and drew out freehand versions on the card stock. This may come as a shock but yes an adult drew those, and, in fact that adult spent one year as an art major in college. Shocking that it didn't work out, huh? 😉

Next we cut the ornaments out in rough rectangles. I suggest doing it this way, rather than cutting it all the way out on the outline because the paper will shrink less as it dries if the center is wet but not the edges. Meaning if the while thing is wet it will wrinkle more as it dries. Up to you though!

You could do these prep steps yourself, or again, depending on your child's abilities he or she could do them.

DIY Scratch n Sniff Watercolor Paints

Next my daughter and  made our batch of scratch n sniff paints. Similar to our Sweet Smell of Christmas Play Dough, we used kitchen ingredients to make our paints. I found the easiest dish to use was an empty egg carton. Here are the recipes to make each paint.

For each one you can choose to use taste-safe food coloring OR non-taste-safe liquid water colors. 

Apple Pie– Pour in 2 tablespoons of apple cider and a generous dash of cinnamon and stir together. A few drops of yellow food coloring is optional.

Candy Cane– Set 1-2 peppermint candy canes between two plates (or use a mortar and pestle) and crush it to a fine powder. Add that a table spoon of warm water and stir it up until it dissolves. Add red food coloring and stir it up.

Gingerbread– Add a dash of nutmeg, a dash of cinnamon and a tablespooon of molasses to warm water and stir. You could add coloring if you want but it dries darker than I expected without it. We had black strap molasses.

Hot Cocoa- Add about a tablespoon of cocoa powder to warm water and stir to dissolve.

Christmas Orange- Add a few drops of orange extract, several drops of yellow food coloring and a few drops of red food coloring. Stir it together.

Pine- We did not do a pine scent for ours because I didn't have anything pine scented on hand aside from PineSol and I didn't think it was wise to recommend sniffing that! Yikes! Bad news! But if you are prepping this activity and would like to add a pine scent a couple drops of pine essential oil would work or if you have a live Christmas tree, you could use this cool method to make pine scented water I saw at Craftulate.

Now it is time to set out your ornaments and paint!

Scratch n Sniff Watercolors for Kid-Made Christmas Ornaments

Once they are dry cut them out on the outlines of each item, punch a hole in each one and tie a ribbon though. Voila! Now you have super cool kid-made ornaments that are totally scratch n sniff!

Tell me about your favorite Christmas Ornaments for Kids to Make in the comments and check out these other awesome ideas below!

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Head to Mama Miss for the Full List of Ornaments for Kids to Make! So much inspiration and so many great ornaments!

Polar Express Ornament from Pleasantest Thing
Travel Souvenir Ornament from Nothing if Not Intentional
Paint Chip Mini Book Ornament from Hand Made Kids Art
Kid Made Ornaments Inspired by Ish from Art Bar
That's Not My Reindeer Ornament from The Eyes of a Boy

Check out my other posts related to the Sweet Smell of Christmas!

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