Easy Salt Dough For Ornaments and Handprints
Made with 3 simple ingredients of plain flour, water and salt - perfect to make with kids and lasts for years. Great for diy salt dough ornaments, decorations, handprints, footprints, paw prints, crafts ideas or just as a play dough. With options for oven baked, air dry and also as no bake salt dough which kids can use to play with like play dough.
Servings 20 ornaments
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup table salt
- ¾ cup warm water
Instructions
- Take a large bowl and mix the flour and salt.
- Add warm water bit by bit while slowly stirring.
- Stir until a dough starts forming. If it is too loose add a bit more flour, if it is too firm add a tiny bit of water until you get the right consistency.
- You should have a nice dough ball. To use it as salt clay to play with just place the dough in a sealable plastic bag and remove all the air so it does not dry out. It can last like this for weeks.
- To make ornaments or handprints/footprints lay the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and use a rolling pin to flatten it out.
- Flatten it out until it is about ¼ inch (approx. ½ cm) thick.
- Create the ornaments/crafts you want- Handprints/ footprints / pawprints - take a cereal bowl and cut a large round shape and then press the print into it- Crafts like dinosaur fossils - cut a round shape with a cookie cutter or larger mug and press the dinosaur shape into it- Christmas ornaments - take cookie cutters and cut out the shapes you need.
- Peel away the remainder of the dough from around the cookies.
- Repeat the process with the leftover dough that you have removed from the cutouts.
- Use a chopstick, straw or skewers to make holes at the top of each shape if you will be using them as hanging ornaments. You can also use a fork or a toothpick if you want to add any decorations before baking.
- Transfer the parchment paper to a baking tray and preheat the oven to 300°F/ 150°C. To air dry it can take anywhere between 24 hours and 7 days, depending on the moisture and warmth of the room, thickness of the dough etc.
- Remove from the oven after an hour. They should be hard when they come out. Once dry and cool, paint them or decorate them with non-toxic paint. Once dry from decorating thread a ribbon on them and hang them on the tree.
Notes
- Non-edible!
- Use the cheapest flour and salt you can find as it really does not make a difference
- If you think the dough is puffing up, reduce heat and bake for longer than the indicated time
- If the dough is still soft after an hour of baking bake for a little longer
- Let the ornaments fully cool before paining them
- Use non-toxic paint as it will most likely end up on skin and maybe even a kid's mouth.
- Store them in bubble wrap between holidays to reduce their moisture exposure