How to Make Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments

One of my fond Christmas memories is the year my mother decided we would make salt dough ornaments, which was quite a trend around 35 years ago. There are still a few of these ornaments on my mother's tree, and they always bring back happy memories.

This is something you can do on any scale: a child's craft, a gift project, an artistic endeavor, or even a way to make extra money.

Materials needed:

* 4 cups all-purpose flour

* 1 cup salt

* 1 1/2 cup warm water

* paint

* sealant or cheap lacquer hairspray

　

　

One thing I have noticed over the years about many salt dough, or bread dough, ornaments that you see is that they are a little fragile after they age, so you might want to take that into consideration when you display older ornaments. Sometimes, people get the dough a little dry or something, it seems, and they crack and disintegrate.

Instructions:

1. Mix the flour and salt well in a large bowl. Add warm water.

2. With flour on your hands, lightly knead the dough for around 5 minutes on a floured surface. The salt dough should be smooth and elastic.

3. Wrap the salt dough in plastic wrap; it dries out quickly. Only pull out small amounts as you need it when you make Christmas ornaments from salt dough.

4. Now for the fun part! Form your Salt dough Christmas ornaments as though you were playing with Play-do. The best ones we did seemed to be characters like Raggedy Ann, Santa and elves, teddy bears, etc...Use the method of combining ball shapes to make these characters. Use a ball for the body, one for each hand or foot, and one for the head.

5. Don't forget to accommodate a hole for a cord or wire to run through for hanging the Christmas ornament on the tree.

6. Place the ornaments on an ungreased cookie sheet.

7. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees and bake for one hour. If more time is needed, turn the figures, and bake a few minutes longer till dry.

8. Remove from baking sheet to cool.

9. Paint the salt dough Christmas ornaments with tempera, acrylic craft paint, water colors, or whatever you desire. You should also coat them with a sealant or gloss.