Handprint Santa Salt Dough Ornaments

Sometimes when you are a blogger, you have all these projects and recipes and things to do, and you do them, but then never get a chance to post them! I have tons of projects and recipes just waiting for a rainy day, because I haven’t had the chance to go through and edit, write a post, and do everything else that goes along with creating a blog post. I know most people probably think that writing a blog post is pretty easy, however, it’s not! The projects or cooking takes time, staging and taking the photos takes a lot of time, then editing the photos takes time….it all takes a lot of time. So, understandably things fall by the wayside. Why am I telling you this? Because in case you didn’t notice, these ornaments have the year on them…and it’s not 2014…it’s 2012. Yes, these are from TWO years ago. How crazy is that?! I have been wanting to post these for TWO years, but haven’t gotten around to it. Geez! Well, finally the time has come to share this awesome project and recipe with you!

Kids LOVE making things, right? These salt dough ornaments are no exception. I would say that this handprint ornament probably need to be done with a kid 4 or under though, because the bigger the hand, the heavier the ornament, and the last thing you want is your tree branch sagging to the floor, right?

Make your dough: I cup of salt, 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of water. Dump it all in a stand mixer and mix it up with the paddle attachment….or, mix it in a bowl with a wooden spoon by hand, until the dough comes together nice and smooth. Roll the dough out, about 1/4 inch thick. Then have the kids stick their hands in there good and deep! With a toothpick, poke a couple holes all around the outside of the hand, and trim around the hand with a butter knife in whatever shape you’d like. Next, take a straw and poke it through at the bottom of your handprint (by the wrist, don’t make the same mistake as I did, your hand will be hanging upside down so poke it at the wrist, not the fingers…) all the way to the other side and pop that little bit of dough out. This is where you will put the string later on. Lastly, pop these into the oven on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cook for about 3 hours at 250 degrees F. Remove and let cool. After they are cooled then you can do a quick spray of clear coat on the top, this way the paint wont chip off and it looks nice and shiny!

Then you can get your white, red, black, and tan colored craft paints and get to work making your little Santa face! Clearly, I’m no artist and these do not need to be perfect, so let the kids help and have fun!