Salt dough Christmas decorations

Is there a better way to celebrate this magical season then

crafting and creating your own Christmas ornaments.

Get yourself and your family into the Christmas spirit
and create your own homemade Christmas decorations this year.
Make some beautiful handmade ornaments
with this simple salt dough recipe for more
creative way to decorate your tree.

Recipe

What You'll Need:

1/2 cup of table salt

1/2 cup of water

1 cup of all-purpose flour



Hints (optional)

If you want to experiment with color:
- you can substitute 1/2 cup of dark tea or coffee for the water,
- or you can add few drops of food coloring or tempera paint
(I would recommend wearing gloves and rolling out any
dyed dough between two sheets of wax paper
to protect your counter and rolling pin),
- or simply by adding a small dose of gingerbread
spice mix you can get this beautiful brown color
and christmassy aromas - just remind everyone
it is not suitable for eating :o) as it will small heavenly.

How to make the salt dough

First, mixed flour, salt, and water in a large bowl -
you may not need all of the water. You want the dough to be dry -
if it gets sticky add more flour.

For extra cohesiveness, you may add 1 to 2 tablespoons
of wallpaper paste to your dough.

Knead the dough until it is smooth and firm and then
roll out and use as you want.
Salt dough is extremely flexible and forgiving,
so you can make ornaments and from it in a variety of ways.

You can make a Christmas wreath, little figures like angel,
reindeer or snowman or cut out snowflakes or little hart ...
- your only limit is your imagination.

 For this batch, I rolled it out like sugar cookie dough
and then used my favorite cookie cutters for make snowflakes and little angels.


Snowflakes

I used cookie cutters to make shapes in the dough.
Latter I used a straw to poke holes into the top of each shape
and I stamped the dough with my rubber stamps
to add dimensions and pattern.

Angels

I  added a small dose of gingerbread spice mix to dye
some dough brown for dresses. Believe me nothing says
warmth and happiness as much as the aromas
of cinnamon, ginger and clove - just remind everyone
it is not suitable for eating :D
To make ginger hair I dyed some dough by adding
red pepper powder and used a garlic press.
(adding red pepper powder made the dough very uneven and
difficult to work with but it gave me a texture of curly hair).

To attach extra pieces of dough decoration, rub a little water
on the back of the piece you want to stick on, then gently press.
You can make them as dimensional as you like.

Drying Salt Dough

Once you have made the shapes you want then
you need to dry them so you can paint and decorate.

Air drying - This is suitable for thin or small salt dough pieces.
Place them in a warm, dry place and allow to air dry for up to 7 days.
Drying time will depend on the size and thickness of the pieces.
Flip the salt dough pieces from time to time to allow even drying.

Baking - Traditionally salt dough is dried in the oven which takes
around 3 hours (depends on the thickness and size of the pieces)
at a low heat so they don’t burn. Bake salt dough figures in a conventional
oven at 200 F (93 C). To avoid browning, check on the pieces
from time to time. Once done baking, allow the pieces to cool completely.

Decorating

You can decorate your creations as you like.

- Use ribbons, glitter or rhinestones
- Paint with tempera or acrylic paint
- Use stamps, inks and embossing powders

As I mentioned earlier - your only limit is your imagination!

Enjoy yourself !

                               Love,
                                               Asya