Video:Homemade Salt Dough Ornaments

Transcript:Homemade Salt Dough Ornaments

Hey everybody – This is Julie Edmonds for About.com. When it comes to Christmas time, I love all the traditions like the trimming the tree, being with family and teaching kids about the holiday spirit. One great activity that really brings all those things together is to create ornaments that everyone can participate in making. Why not decorate this years tree with salt dough Christmas ornaments made by the kids.

Dough Ornament Supplies

You'll need just a few things to make this project happen:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup water
• big bowl and spoon
• cookie cutters or kid safe plastic knife
• food coloring
• cookie sheet or plate
• paints

Mix the Salt Dough

Start by mixing the flour salt and water together in a bowl. At this point you need to make a decision if you are going want colored dough - if so now add your food coloring. You can start mixing by using a spoon but as it stiffens up you may want get your hands in there. This is a great step to include kids in as they love squishing their little fingers in dough. One of the great things about this recipe is if your dough is a little too dry just add a little tap water at a time or if it is too sticky you can add a little flour at a time until you dough is just the way you like it.

For this project we are using we are making Christmas ornaments but this could also be done as a anytime of the year project to make decorations for holidays like Valentine's day, Thanksgiving, or Halloween.

Roll the Dough

Now here comes the exciting part where the ornament starts to take its shape. First take you dough and either roll it out with a rolling pin if you have one or just smoosh it out is into a 1/4 inch slab.

Shape the Dough Ornaments

Next use either cookie cutters or a kid safe knife to create Christmas shapes. Some of my favorite shapes are a Christmas tree, a jingle bell, candy cane or a snowman but the only limit is your kid's imagination. Now that you have you shapes cut out.

Bake and Decorate the Ornaments

Put them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven set for 250 for about 2 hours making sure to flip them every 20 min so the edges don’t curl up. After they have cooled down enough to hold paint them any way your heart desires. Remember, it's great to have kids sign the back and to date them so you can remember who made what and when.

Now you have a beautiful homemade Christmas ornament made by you and your kids! As you can feel it is pretty strong and will last for many seasons. By making ornaments you can create with your kids they become part of the Christmas magic. Thanks for watching! To learn more, visit us on the Web at About.com.