salt dough ornaments

Every year we break out the dough and roll us out some christmas ornaments.  We loooove this craft.  And they make great keepsakes, too.  I helped Legend and the twins paint theirs, but Thaddeus had fun making his own designs this year.  The kids love the whole process (it's kind of a lengthy one--plan on spending a half day at least on these).  Oh, and I whipped up some "real" cookies right before we started to curb the kids' appetites and keep them from taking a bite out of their ornaments (it happened anyway...Boston bit a chunk out of his heart shaped ornament...it just looked so yummy and of course he had to find out it didn't taste good for himself...pretty sure this happens every year).

We've used this recipe for salt dough ornaments for several years now:

Ingredients:

4 c. flour

1 c. salt

1 1/2 c. warm water

Directions:

Mix flour and salt and gradually add warm water.  Mix until it forms a dough.  Knead with hands until the dough becomes soft and then roll it out on a floured surface till it's about 1/8 inch thick.  Use cookie cutters to make shapes or cut them out freehand with a pocket knife.  Poke holes near the top of the shape with a straw (much easier to thread your string through later--so don't forget this part!)  Bake 325 degrees for about 50 minutes to an hour, just until hard.

When they're cool, paint them with any paint you have on hand and add a little glitter for fun.  Tie a string or some Christmas ribbon through the hole for hanging and you're done.  I write my kid's names and the date on the back of their ornaments for a keepsake.  This recipe makes a ton of dough.  Our neighbor came over and made ornaments with us and we were still able to make about a dozen each.

This last pic makes me laugh.  You'd think we were freezing with Boston bundled up to his ears and Astair's hat on.  But really, we're only just emerging from our 80 degree weather and finally feeling some winter temperatures.  I guess we're overly anxious to wear all our woolies.