Salt Dough Ornaments

For my daughter's birthday party, we gave a little "thank you" to her friends by giving them each a salt dough ornament wrapped in a chevron bag....

The salt dough ornaments were so simple to make (and really, really inexpensive!).  All that we needed to make the ornaments were flour, sugar and salt.  To make them more decorative you can use things around the house like cookie cutters, stamps, markers, etc (and ribbon, yarn, or twine to hang the ornament).

For our recipe, we used:

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups warm water

I used a stand mixer with the dough hook.... first we blended the flour and salt, then gradually added the water.  We mixed the dough for about five minutes on medium speed, then took it out, placed it on floured parchment paper and kneaded it until it was soft (not long).

After the dough was soft, we rolled it out (about an 1/4 inch thick) and cut out several circles using a small measuring cup (using cookie cutters could be really cute too- my son made a few Star Wars ornaments).

For each ornament we poked a hole at the top with a straw for threading twine later.

Now for the fun part.... stamps!   We chose to stamp the year (2011) on the ornament using these stamps.

Once the cutting and stamping was done, we laid them on drying racks.... and here's the part that requires patience.... waiting!  We waited for about four days for salt dough ornaments to completely harden.   I chose NOT to bake them first because I was afraid some might end up a little discolored or shrink in certain areas.

Once they were finally dry, we stung twine through the hole, wrapped them as gifts and then hung the rest on the kid's Christmas tree in the playroom.

What homemade ornaments are you making this season?

Linking up to Centsational Girl.