Salt Dough Ornaments

If you feel like getting your hands into your Christmas crafts, this is the perfect one! You can definitely include your children and have a lot of fun with this, too. So with just three simple common house hold ingredients lets whip up a batch of Salt Dough.

 

Salt Dough Recipe

1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup cold to luke warm water

• Mix salt and flour together in a large bowl.
• Then slowly add in the water and stir well, until it begins to form a consistency of dough.
• Knead the dough for 5 minutes, adding a few more drops of water as needed (but not making it too moist). The dough will become smoother, the more you knead it.

 Directions to make ornaments

• That simple.. now you can divided and roll it out about 1/8 - 1/4 inch thickness. Keep unused dough in airtight container or plastic wrap.
  
• Use cookie cutters, or create shapes like you would with playdough. It's up to you and your imagination. Have fun.
• For hanging ornaments use a straw to punch out holes in "cookie" to thread a ribbon through after finished. You can also push a wire ornament hanger or paper clip into it to dry in place.
• Then let the ornaments dry on cookie racks or wax paper for about 2 days, turning occasionally.
• Optional baking method to dry ornaments and get a little golden color, bake at 200*F in oven on cookie sheets with aluminum foil gently laying over top to prevent too much browning. Drying time depends on humidity, and your oven. 
• I like to heat for 200*F in the evening for a few hours while I can monitor them. Then leave them in oven overnight with the heat turned off. They will usually be dry in the morning, unless they were very thick to begin with. If not dry in the morning, just monitor at 200*F until they dry, another hour should be long enough.   Or just let air dry for the rest of the day.  Watch you don't burn them!

 After drying decorate

• Acrylic paints,  fabric paints, puff paints, glitter, ribbons, etc.
• Gingerbread men and Christmas cookies are very fun to decorate with puff fabric paint. Looks just like icing! 
• You can also leave plain. That works, too.
• Make a pretty hanger with ribbons.

Longevity

•  Finally, spraying your dough craft with polyurethane or varnish, will seal them and make them last for years to come. But this is optional.

The main thing is to have fun with family and friends of all ages. Get your do-dads ready and have fun making what ever you can imagine. Then you get to bake them in your own oven. Watch a Christmas movie or eat lunch, cookies, cocoa, etc. Then after a few hours decorate, or decorate the next day. Just enjoy!

I hope this is a fun Christmas craft to share.

Blessings,

Susie