DIY: Salt Dough Hand Print Ornaments

It's not too early for Christmas is it?  I say its never too early.  Last year we (Silas and I) tried our hand at making salt dough ornaments.  Silas had just turned one and I really wanted to do something with him that would be special and memorable.  Let me just say, we had the best time.  He loved playing with the dough, squishing it with his hands and using the rolling pin and I loved watching and helping him.  Our ornaments might not have turned out perfect or magazine worthy but I don't even care (and usually I can become a wacko perfectionist when it comes to this kind of stuff so this is a biggie for me) because I love that memory and I will cherish it forever.  So here is our little salt dough ornament experiment...

So the dough is pretty simple:

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup water

1 cup flour

You just mix them together in your mixer until a sticky dough forms and then you are reading to start kneading your dough (about 10 min) and then on to rolling it out and making your ornaments. 

We chose to make hand prints so we found a little bowl that was a good size for his hand to cut out the ornament shapes and then the fun began with trying to get Silas to keep his hand still so we could get an adequate print without ripping holes in the dough - much harder than you may realize.  I also decided to write the year on the dough - in hindsight I should have used a stamp and then I did it and didn't want to redo all of them since getting the print had already felt like a grand accomplishment so I just left it (it was the memories for me anyway).  I also used a straw to poke a hole in the top before I baked them so I could hang them later.

We finally worked it out and got about four decent handprints to bake into ornaments.  We baked ours at 200 F for 4-6 hours (you need to get all of the moisture out so you are really just drying the dough out.

After we had our solid as a rock hand prints I let them sit a few days and then decided I wanted to add a little color and bling so I brushed on a little glue around the actual print and sprinkled on various glitters.  After it dried I sprayed them all with a clear acrylic coat to keep the glitter from flaking off.  

I pulled one out last week and remembered how much I enjoyed that sweet time and looked at how much my little buddy had grown.  If you have a little one you should definitely try and squeeze in a ornament making session this year.  I'm planning on doing another sort of ornament together with him again this year and then again next year and the next - until he decides he's too old for that.  

Hope you guys have a great week! 

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