Salt Dough Ornaments

Last year, my daughter and I started (what I hope will be) an annual-Christmas-ornament-making-day. She was only a year and a half at the time, so we made very simple (aka idiot-proof) felt ornaments from a Martha Stewart kit.

Now that Emma is older and much more into crafting, we made salt dough ornaments to give out to friends and family and, of course, add to our tree. I got the inspiration from another blog- a wonderful blog- called the Artful Parent, where the blogger shares nearly-daily crafts that she and her daughters enjoy. It seems like every time I read her blog, I say out loud, "Oh! I want to do that too!" Seriously, she is so clever. Check it out.

So the other day, she posted about making stamped salt dough ornaments.  Looked easy enough to me! Enter the mother-daughter ornament making for 2011:

The recipe is simple. Mix 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and 1 and 1/2 cups of water together. Knead and roll the dough into a flat disc and chill. Then roll out the dough and cut your shapes using cookie cutters. Be sure to make a hole for the string! I've read several on several blogs that a straw works great for this task. However, I didn't have a straw, so I used the fat side of a chopstick and that worked just fine. Place the shapes on parchment paper on cookie sheets in a 225 degree oven for 3-4 hours. Once the shapes have cooled, start painting!

 

This recipe made 37 ornaments (about 2 dozen large and the rest small). Although I admit I had to toss a handful because the holes closed up on them, making it impossible to thread the yarn through. But  honestly, we didn't need this many ornaments so it was a great loss. I used Crayola washable paints (remember that my daughter is in the throes of toddler-hood = messy-hood), glitter and a sparkly yarn for decorating.

And after a morning of painting and glittering, this is what we ended up with!