Commodore Christmas Ornaments

August 18th, 2012 | Posted by Michelle in Crafts

Finished Commodore Logo

I don’t know about you but I think summer is the best time to start getting your handmade Christmas gifts underway. I generally make all my presents if I can, here’s a past example of something for the Husband.

The things I do for my man. Sometimes I just get these crazy ideas and decide to try and make something but I really have no idea what I’m doing.

The last few years, hallmark has made game themed ornaments that Husband loves. They are modeled after the stand up arcade machines, and they released two classic games: Galaga and Pac-Man. He had no idea they were coming out so he was greatly surprised at Christmas when I would give them to him.

This year he remembered about the ornaments and was so super excited about what would be released in the future when I had to break the news to him.

They weren’t doing them anymore.

He was really quite upset and didn’t understand why they weren’t doing them anymore. I felt so bad for him that I wanted to figure out a way to make him something.

He started a Commodore Users Group in 2010 so I thought that would be a great theme.

commodore logo

Commodore – check!

Now I know what I want to make, the Commodore logo, but how do I make it? I was surfing some craft blogs and came across people using salt dough to make ornaments. Hmm. I’ve never used that but it sounds like cheap clay. Awesome. I can make some and if it doesn’t work out I can scrap it without spending lots of money.

Commodore – check!
Salt Dough – check!

Wait, how am I going to get this logo on this thing? I want something that stands out, have the logo raised. Crap.

Then I found something great! Making your own cookie cutters from foil pans! Holy crap, my DIY has gone to a new level.

Commodore Cookie Cutters

So then I made them. My goal was to have a 3” circle with the logo sitting on top. I rolled out the salt dough to roughly ¼” thick, and cut out the base circles. Then rolled it out a bit thinner and used the cookie cutters to cut out the shapes.

Raw Commodore Logo

I brushed the back of the shapes with water to help “glue” them to the base circle. It also seemed to help a little when I brushed the seams on the sides together with water. But if they do fall off, you can just glue them back on.

I didn’t want to bake them and get the “cookie” look to them (salt dough puffs slightly when baked) but I still needed to dry them out without cooking them. I was afraid that if I let them sit and just air dry they would mold and not get completely dry inside.

So I put them in my dehydrator! I put it on the lowest setting and let it run for days. It felt like it took forever for them to dry, they were pretty darn thick. But in the end they dried out wonderfully and none of them cracked or puffed on me. I was ecstatic. So was Husband.

I didn’t know how well the paints would stick (I just used cheap acrylic) so I did several base coats in white. I was going to do the base circle in white anyways, but I also painted the whole thing white just in case.

White Commodore Logo

Added the color to the appropriate areas, and then we had awesome looking ornaments! I ended up sealing them with 3 coats of a glossy acrylic sealant, which gave it a really nice shine to it. Unfortunately the shine also picked up all of the imperfections of the dough.

They aren’t perfect, but Husband (and the other geeks who bought one from one of the meetings) really enjoyed them. Even the pizza place where the meetings are held bought one to put on their tree. That was quite awesome.

Finished Commodore Logo

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