In July I promised you some fun Christmas Crafts using salt dough and I’m finally bringing them to you. I actually made my first round in early November. They turned out beautifully and after I finished baking them I let the pan cool in the oven. A couple hours later I started dinner, preheated the oven, and proceeded to burn two batches of beautiful ornaments! So sad!
So we made some more, and then ended up making a fourth batch so we could make these hand print ornaments. The kids love painting them (even the burned ones) so it wasn’t a complete loss. I’ll give you a brief rundown of how to do it and if you have any questions you can refer to my original salt dough tutorial here.
Make your dough using 1 c flour, 1/2 c salt, and about 1/2 c of warm water. (I usually double this.) Combine the flour and salt and then slowlly add in enough water to form the dough. If you are wanting to make hand prints out of your salt dough – you will add more water because you need a looser dough. You want to be able to easily press your hand into the dough so make sure it is nice and soft. (You can also add food color to the dough if you want it all the same color.) Knead the dough for 10 minutes and then let rest for another 40 minutes.
Roll out the dough until it’s 1/4 inch thick. My third batch this year I actually split the dough and rolled it out on two cutting boards so each of my boys could do what they wanted with “their” dough. Cut out the shapes using cookie cutters or even a knife will do. For the hand prints I used the top to a pitcher – it just happened to be the right size and worked great!
If are making ornaments be sure to poke a hole where you will be hanging the ornament from. Make sure it goes all the way through and that any extra dough is removed. Place the ornaments on a parchment-lined baking tray and bake for 4-6 hours (or until hard) at 200 degrees. You can also air dry but plan on several extra days for that.
Once the ornaments are hard and dry it’s time to decorate! Paints, glue, glitter, ribbon – you name it! I just let the kids go crazy and do whatever they want (plus I had lots of extras!) Let the paint and glue dry.
I used a polyurethane spray on the ornaments to seal them so that they will keep beautifully but this step is optional. Hang up your fabulous creations with a pretty ribbon and enjoy! I just love this project because it’s super affordable and you can make it using whatever you have on hand. There’s no need to run out and buy a whole bunch of supplies. Here are some of our creations…
I particularly love the stockings with our initials on them. The cuffs of the stockings have glitter on them and it just turned out so cute! The hand prints are so special too. My little boys are growing up so fast and looking at their little tiny hands on future Christmases will be very sentimental. Really the possibilities are endless with salt-dough. I hope you and your family will create some treasured ornaments this holiday season!
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