Easy holiday ornaments that don’t look half bad!

Easy holiday ornaments

I have to say, I’m not at all a DIYer, not at all. So when my daughter’s school asked me to make a craft for her winter fair fundraiser, I kinda wanted to cry.

Like any good(ish) mom I surfed the pages of Pinterest to find something I could make easily without breaking the bank…or look like crud – we have all seen the epic craft fails!

Then I remembered SALT DOUGH!

We made salt dough ornaments all the time as kids, so I was sure that as an adult I could pull it off. I didn’t realize that salt dough had matured quite so much over the years, it truly had come into its own. The Pinterest boards were beautiful, so beautiful I was sure to be headed for a fail.

I decided to put a bunch of the ideas together based on the random stamps and ink pads I had lying around the house. The only thing I actually had to buy was MORE salt and varnish (I did sneak in a new deer stamp just because I couldn’t leave Michaels without it!).

Anyway, here is what you will need to get this done:

For the salt dough mix together:

2 cup flour
1 cup salt
1 cup warm water

For the design you will need:

Ink pad (I used black/silver/blue)
Stamps (holiday style)
Cookie cutters
Parchment paper
Spray varnish (do not attempt any other kind of varnish!)

Roll the dough out on parchment paper as if you were making cookies and then use your inked stamp to press designs into the dough (not too hard).

You can then use your cookie cutter to cut around the stamp design (if you do it the other way the stamp may not be centred, and if you’re like me, that’s crazy making!).

Use a toothpick or straw to cut a hole at the top. Pull the access dough away from the sheet and let the ornaments dry.

Eventually you will need to move the ornaments to a baking rack to dry the whole way through. It will take about 5 days to dry.

When they are dry, spray varnish on both sides!