Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments

Tis’ the season to be merry and decorate everything. The house, Christmas tree, fire place mantel, dining room, etc.! But one of my favorite holiday DIY projects is making salt dough Christmas ornaments. They are super easy to make and all of the ingredients can be found right in your cabinets or pantry. The only things you need to buy, if you don’t already own them, is paint, pipe cleaners/string, and mod podge.

Christmas in 2015 was the first time I did this salt dough project with my oldest daughter. Jordyn was a year old at the time. I made hand print Christmas ornaments and shared them with family. One of the best parts of these salt dough Christmas ornaments is that they can be made inexpensively and usually with items already in your kitchen. Flour, salt and water. Anything else is just an add on for decoration.

So before we get started I want to share a few fun painting with kids ideas.

• Buy the cheap disposable table cloth(s) from the party section of a grocery store or party store to do this project on. It’s such a quick and easy way to clean up the mess. Just ball it up and toss in the trash. And it’s super cheap which makes it even better!
• Write your kid(s) name, date, and age on the back of the ornaments so you can remember how little they were when they made them years from now.
• Buy cheap white t-shirts and make them their “messy shirts”. This are the shirts I put on my girls for all messy activities. They can get the shirts as messy and paint filled as they like without Mom going crazy to clean them LOL.

You will need:

1 Cup Salt

1 Cup Flour

1/2 Cup + 2 Tbsp. Water

Cookie Cutter or Knife

Parchment or Wax Paper

Paint

Pipe Cleaners or String

Mod Podge

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
2. Mix the salt flour, and 1/2 of water together in a bowl. If it’s too dry to combine add 1 Tablespoon or water at a time.

1. Knead and roll into a ball.

1. Use a rolling pin (or hands) to flatten the ball into a half inch thick layer.
2. Now use your cookie cutters or knife to create the shape you want for your ornaments.
3. Place the cut out ornaments on a baking sheet. Use any item you can to make a hole in the top of the ornaments. (I used a skewer and straw in the past)
4. Bake for 1 hour. Once you take them out let them rest for 30 minutes to cool down and completely harden.
5. Once cooled and hardened paint the ornaments and let dry for a few hours or overnight.
6. When the paint is dry add a very thin layer of your mod podge to the ornaments and let dry for 30 minutes to an hour.
7. Use the pipe cleaner or string to put through the hole on the ornament, tie the ends together well, and put your new ornaments on the tree! 🙂