Magical cookie forest

Two days from today, Max's school will have their yearly Winter Faire. We're so excited! I'm the chair of the Magical Cookie Forest, where trees magically sprout cookies for children to gather and bring home. We've got the trees ready to be delivered tomorrow, about 500 cookies (made by dedicated parents who I managed to cajole) scheduled to be delivered, and many eager children ready to descend on the school grounds.

We will transform a small room into the cookie forest, complete with real trees and delicious cookies. The room doesn't have a door, so I thought it would be nice to create a curtain to hang in the doorway, to maintain the magic of the event. Rather than hang a plain curtain, I made these little felt cookie trees. They'll be tied to the curtain, and after Winter Faire will make an appearance on our tree too!

These are so quick and easy to make, I thought I'd give an overview, as there's plenty of time before the holidays to make up some wonderful-smelling cookies trees of your own!

Supplies:
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Cinnamon ornaments (cinnamon, applesauce, nutmeg, cloves, small cookie cutters)

Fabric paint (the kind in the squirt bottle)

Green wool felt

White wool felt or cotton batting

Thread

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Step 1: Make the cinnamon ornaments. I used the recipe here, recipe #3 with cloves and nutmeg. Mmmm, the smell is wonderful! I baked them in a 200F oven for about 2 hours to dry them quickly. This led to some of them curling up a bit, but that's ok. Then I sanded the rough edges with a nail file.

Step 2: Decorate ornaments, if desired. I used white puffy fabric paint in a little squeeze bottle. Very simple. Max got into it too.

Step 3: Cut out felt, 2 green trees and 1 white. The white can be a partial tree, as it's supposed to be the snow on the tree. For the templates, I simplified one from the Dec. 2007 MS Living, here's the link to the template, I used the largest tree. I used two green layers to give the tree enough stiffness, you don't want floppy trees! I tried both white felt and cotton batting. I like the feel of the cotton batting better, but it does hold its cinnamon crumbs a bit too well!

Step 4: Stack trees together and sew! If you used pen to outline your templates for the cutting line, then flip that piece of felt over so the pen lines don't show. You can put your "snow" in front, or in the middle of the two green pieces, or leave it out entirely. Do a blanket stitch or running stitch around the edges.

Step 5: Sew on ornaments once they've completely dried. Thread a needle with thick floss and sew through the tops to make a hanger. You're done!

Comments

[Bettsi]

How adorable! A cute craft and a cute momento for you afterwards! I wish I could go to the magical cookie forest!

[carabeth]

Those are beautiful!! I hope you have a great time at your fair.

[Sarah]

I'd be really interested in seeing pictures of your magical cookie forest. We do a "crystal cookie cave." You enter into a dark, narrow space with walls of black cloth. there's a little fountain trickling, someone playing a harp, and all around are little white lights, big crystals and then a huge display of sugary/crystally cookies. Each child gets to pick a cookie and a little crystal to take.

[heidi]

i adore these sweetie!! what a great idea! hope it all goes well.

[Becca]

This is brilliant! We make those cinnamon ornaments every year, and I am currently obsessed with felt...it's the perfect combo!

[myra]

Great project! I will have to try this with our boy since he loves cinnamon, just have to make sure he doesn't try to sample any of the ornaments.

[debbie]

i know those ornaments smell great - my children each made them more then once in their childhood and they've held up great all these years! i love your cookie trees!