11th Day of Christmas

  Ok so I suck... I can't believe I went all the way to the 10th day of xmas and then got swept up in holiday madness and never posted days 11 and 12! for shame. Ah, well, at least I cranked 10 out on time. These next 2 days are quite belated but they're still cute ideas, so enjoy!

A long, long, time ago (before I was born) my parents made salt dough ornaments to hang on the christmas tree. Over time most of them have disappeared or broken, but there are still a couple floating around in our ornament boxes. I've always loved having a christmas tree with handmade ornaments on it- it makes it so much more special. This year we decided to make some new salt dough ornaments so that Jenny and I will have some of our own to put on our future christmas trees :)

Jenny did the dough making so I don't have a ton of pics, but I'll post what I have.

I think she used a recipe that called for mixing 2 cups of all purpose flour with 1 cup of salt and then slowly mixing in 1 cup of warm water. A ball of soft, pliable dough should form. It shouldn't be too sticky- if it is, add more flour. If it's crumbly, add more water.

There are two different ways to make salt dough ornaments. You can roll the dough out like you would sugar cookie dough and use cookie cutters to make 2D shapes, or you can shape the dough like clay to make tiny sculptures. We did a little of both, but the first way is pictured below. Don't forget to poke holes in the ornaments so that you can hang them on the tree!

Bake in an oven at 350 degrees for about an hour. Don't worry if they get a little brown, since you will be painting them. The ornaments are done when they are completely hard.

Let the ornaments cool, and then paint! Regular acrylic paints work best.

It might be too late to make these for this year, but salt dough creations can be fun all year long :) now hang on a sec and I'll get the 12th day of christmas up ^^
<3