Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments

I’m baaack!

Merry Christmas everyone and sorry for the unintentional blogging hiatus! I’ve been on holidays from work for the last couple of weeks, and I didn’t realise how much I rely on work to get me in a good routine! Anyway, I have a whole bunch of things that I have been working on that I can’t wait to share with you. :)

Today’s blog is about salt dough, which is very similar to play-dough. You can make it so quickly and easily, as you can with play-dough, and using ingredients that I pretty much guarantee you will have in your cupboard. It’s a great holiday craft project to try with kids. Or, you know, yourself. Which is what I did.

Anyway, the benefit of salt dough is that you can mould it into any shape you like, then pop it in the oven to cook. It will dry hard and relatively durable, perfect for Christmas ornaments. The recipe and method are as follows.

Salt Dough

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup fine salt
• 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water

Method

1. Preheat oven to 110 degrees Celsius (a very slow oven).
2. Combine ingredients in a bowl, mix well.
3. Turn dough onto a flat surface and knead until smooth.
4. Make shapes by hand or using cookie cutters. Make sure to leave holes if you want to put your shapes on a string. Keep in mind that bigger, thicker shapes will take longer to cook, and may “puff out” a little – similar to cookies expanding when they cook. Thinner shapes will not change.
5. Place shapes on a baking tray covered in baking paper, and cook for 2-3 hours. Shapes should feel hard, but should not turn brown. For a golden glaze, brush shapes gently with egg whites every half hour while cooking.
6. When cooked, remove from the oven and cool completely before decorating.
7. Salt dough shapes will last for a long time if they are sealed, glazed or painted. They should be kept dry, as they may begin to rot if exposed to moisture. They can be painted with acrylic or oil paints.

I used superglue to cover some of the heart ornaments in glitter. I used this particular one to make my Christmas Card Display.

Merry Christmas!

These wreaths are my favourite. They look great hanging on the tree, and you can also use them as frames for cross stitch or other embroidery. I used an egg white glaze to give them their golden colour.