Children and adults alike enjoy seeing their artistic ability immortalized during the holiday season, especially in the form of decorations and ornaments. Creating your own ornament is a great way to make memories with friends and family, and writing a note on the ornament about the year it was made can be the start of a beautiful tradition.
One easy way to make ornaments is the classic salt dough recipe. Simply combining water, salt, and flour creates a moldable, soft medium that allows using everything from hand carving to silicone molds to create the final product.
To create the dough:
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.
- Add 4 cups of flour, to 1 cup of salt
- Slowly add 1 cup of water to the salt and flour mixture until your preferred consistency is achieved.
- When the dough is close, knead it for five to ten minutes
- Let it rest while you gather a few ways to modify the dough, including:
- Sculpting tools
- Plastic knives
- Stamps
- Silicone Molds
- You can also knead food coloring into smaller sections of the dough to have multi-colored ornaments.
- A plastic straw or wooden skewer is a great way to poke a hole in each ornament to thread a piece of ribbon through.
- If hand carving ornaments, place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Silicone molds can go in the oven, or you may try to remove the ornament from the mold and place on a sheet.
When the dough is fully shaped, simply place in the oven for 2 hours at the low temperature. It will be dry and hard, so check and make sure the dough has hardened before removing the ornaments from the tray. Thread ribbons through the holes you made, and tie ornaments around the house as decorations or around tree limbs as part of a beautiful Christmas tree. Enjoy!