Salt Dough Tree Ornaments

Last December a friend asked us to mind her youngest child for a couple of hours, which we were happy to do,  Her little one is just about the same age as Kallista, so we were looking forward to some fun with a 3.5 year old and two 1.5 year olds.  Susan is great with her children and does all sorts of cool things with them, so I wanted her wee one to feel at home with us.  I had a think, and thought this activity may work well.  We still had a great time, so I thought I would share the experience with you.

Salt Dough Recipe

Mix the following items together:

• 2 Cups Flour
• 1 Cup Salt
• 1 Cup Water

Roll the dough out until it is about 1/8 inch thick.

Bake the ornaments at 170C.

We measured out the ingredients

We mixed up the ingredients

We set to rolling out the dough

The children cut out the shapes

Next we put the decorations into the oven to bake

Once they had cooled sufficiently, they took out the acrylic paint and set to work painting their creations.

I will admit that this recipe didn’t work quite the way I had hoped that it might.  The original plan was to make hand prints as keepsakes.  But those bubbled up in the oven and were very disappointing, so ours were not keepers at all.

These ones turned out pretty well though, I think!

I didn’t have any varnish on hand last year, but I have since found it so the ones we kept for our tree will receive a clear coat this year.  The other ones we will have to leave to their new owners to complete; the children gave some of these as gifts to their grandparents near and far.

Do you have a salt-dough recipe that you use with more success?  Please share it with me, I’d like to have another go with these in the future.

For more fun ideas, see our Christmas ideas page, as well as our recipes for play page.