Salt dough ornaments }{ tutorial

Dear friends, I'm beat. I wish I could tell you all that's going on. Soon.

But the Christmas/holiday season is here and if that doesn't inject a hefty dose of energy into a crafter, I don't know what does. The princess and I have been doing small little projects almost daily. On the weekends we go a little crazier and do more involved crafts, like this one. It can be done in one day, but why would you want to put more rush into your holidays?

Materials for the dough ornaments:

• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of lukewarm water
• cookie cutters
• chopstick or a pencil
• rolling pin
• cookie sheet
• parchment paper
• aluminum foil

Materials for decoration:

• white craft paint
• sharpies
• glitter paint
• brushes

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 250F.
2. Mix the ingredients in a bowl. It quickly becomes a pliable but firm dough. It's super easy to manage this one.
3. With some flour on the rolling pin and surface, roll the dough until it's about 1/4" thick. The thicker you make it, the longer it takes to dry (believe me, the princess didn't want to roll it and ours came out very thick)
4. Cut shapes with the cookie cutters. Make a hole for the string with the chopstick or pencil
5. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the ornaments carefully on the sheet. Cover them with foil and bake it for 3-4 hours (depending on thickness).
6. Let them dry for a while (we left them alone overnight).
7. Paint them with the white craft paint and let it dry. Our dried quite quickly because we used a blow dryer on the paint.
8. Draw designs with the markers, add glitter, or finish whatever look you want to give them. This part is up to your imagination.
9. Cut some string and put through the holes. Tie a knot and voila, you have ornaments ready to hang on your tree.

I don't know why she's so serious. She was smiling a second before.

We had so much fun making them, and the princess is so proud of hers she took them to school to share with her friends. This is an easy but fun way of making ornaments with the kids.