How to make salt dough ornaments

The girls had a great time last year making salt dough ornaments. The recipe to make the dough is fairly simple and the greatest amount of fun comes from choosing the cookie cutters! 

We spent time over the course of four meetings to complete these ornaments as you see in the photo below. Not the entire meeting time was used each week, so you may be able to combine steps to make the process faster.

Meeting 1: Making the salt dough and cutting out the shapes.
*Dough baked later at Leader's house.
Meeting 2: Painting the ornaments.
Meeting 3: Glossing the ornaments with Modpodge.
Meeting 4: Attaching lengths of ribbon to ornaments ready for hanging. 

The ornaments are cooked on a low heat for over 2 hours so it was not possible for us to bake them during the meeting. Instead the Brownie Guides arranged the dough on baking trays so I was able to put them straight in the oven once I went home. The next week they were all ready to paint.

How to make salt dough ornaments

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup table salt
2/3 cup water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Method:
Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. After a while it will be difficult to mix so begin to knead the ingredients using your hands. Add a little bit of water if it's still a bit dry, but not too much or it will get too sticky! Knead until the ingredients are well mixed - it will not be a completely smooth dough because of the salt, but get it as smooth as possible.

Roll out the dough using a rolling pin. Just under 1cm is a good depth. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters and place them on a baking tray. The dough doesn't spread so you don't have the space them out too much. 

NOTE: If you plan on hanging the ornaments don't forget to add a small hole at the top ! Do this by sticking a straw into the dough, and taking out the small circle produced.

Bake for 2.5 hours on 120 degrees Celsius. Keep an eye on dough after the two hour mark. Depending on size and thickness of dough, it may need more or less time in the oven.

Makes 15-20 ornaments depending on size.

Once the baked dough has cooled decorate with paint as you like. For a finishing touch gloss using Modpodge. Add a length of ribbon (approx 20cm) so that you can display your ornament.

Have fun!!

Let me know if you try out this recipe!