How to make Christmas ornaments from Salt Dough or Bread Dough

One of my fond Christmas memories is the year my mother decided we would make Christmas ornaments from bread dough, or salt dough, which was quite a trend around 35 years ago. There are still a few of these ornaments on my mother's tree, and they always bring back happy memories.

This is something you can do on any scale: a child's craft, a gift project, an artistic endeavor, or even a way to make extra money.

One thing I have noticed over the years about many bread dough ornaments that you see is that they are a little fragile after they age, so you might want to take that into consideration when you display older ornaments. Sometimes, people get the dough a little dry or something, it seems, and they crack and disintegrate.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 1/2 cup warm water
• paint
• sealant or cheap laquer hairspray

1. Mix the flour and salt well in a large bowl to form your salt dough. Add warm water.

2. With flour on your hands, lightly knead the dough for around 5 minutes on a floured surface. The dough should be smooth and elastic.

3. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap; salt dough dries out quickly. Only pull out small amounts as you need it.

4. 
   Salt dough Christmas ornaments have to be baked and cooled before painting.

   Now for the fun part! Form your salt dough ornaments as though you were playing with Play-do. The best ones we did seemed to be characters like Raggedy Ann, Santa and elves, teddy bears, etc...Use the method of combining ball shapes to make these characters. Use a ball for the body, one for each hand or foot, and one for the head.

5. Don't forget to accomodate a hole for a cord or wire to run through the salt dough ornament for hanging on the tree.

6. Place the Salt dough figures on an ungreased cookie sheet.

7. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees and bake for one hour. If more time is needed, turn the figures, and bake a few minutes longer till dry.

8. Remove from baking sheet to cool. You have learned how to make Christmas ornaments from salt dough or bread dough!

9. Paint the Christmas ornaments or figures witih tempera, acrylic craft paint, water colors, or whatever you desire. You should also coat them with a sealant or gloss.

[emilywhitby1]

on 11/15/2009 Cool--these are so pretty! This will make a fun Christmas craft to do with my kids. THanks for the idea! 5*

[nancycarol]

on 11/14/2009 Thanks for the information in How to Make Christmas Ornaments from Salt Dough or Bread. People have no idea of the things we did to decorate back in the day. Good job, *5