Thank you Artful Parent for such a great blog about salt dough ornaments! This project was loved by parent and child alike. And the suggested recipe came out great every time.
- 4 cups of flour
- 1 cup of salt
- 1.5 cups of water
- bake at 225 for 3 hours
This recipe produced enough dough for around 4 dozen ornaments made out of medium sized cookie cutters. I have classes of six and seven students at a time and they averaged about 6 ornaments each.
I started each class by mixing a fresh batch of salt dough. I included the first students of the day as everyone trickled in.
Salt dough is stiffer than play dough and takes the weight of an adult to roll out to 1/4 inch. I encouraged students to stand so they would have good body control and parents to work with their child allowing their child to hold the rolling pin with them.
We rolled the dough, cut a variety of shapes (heart, star, butterfly, flower, diamond).
We then punched holes with straws so the ornaments could be hung. Some students enjoyed making patterns and designs with their straws.
Our next step focused on making marks and texture with wooden stamps and mardi gras beads.
A few of my older students got inspired to cut up the mardi gras beads and create ornate designs.
After making marks we worked on decorating with beads by pressing them into the dough. It’s important to press the beads as deep as possible. I’d say 95% of the beads stay, but some definitely fall out after they are baked. If you have modge podge around you can do a clear coat after they are bake to seal the beads in.
Our next involved coloring the ornaments with glitter liquid water color. We painted right onto the uncooked ornaments. I even started baking them before the paint was completely dry and they came out great!
