Homemade Salt Dough Ornaments

I take care of a gaggle of kids every afternoon and I'm always looking for cheap fun things to do to keep them busy.  Salt Dough Ornaments were a great idea because it was a multi-day craft and they looked forward to all of the steps.

The first day we made the dough and shaped them using cookie cutters.  We let every child do one and then when we had some leftover dough I let a few do some extras for the kids who weren't there that day.  Make sure to use a straw to poke the hole through BEFORE you bake.  And make it larger than a normal poke.  Spread it around a little because the dough shrinks up a bit when baked.  The hint to these ornaments is bake them LONG and LOW.  A lot of recipes say for about 20 minutes at 300 degrees.  I recommend going around an hour at 250 degrees.  If you go too hot they start to crack a little.

The next time we were together we painted them and we let them do whatever they wanted.  Some just threw the paint on (like Bug), some made elaborate designs (see Goose's cat paw and gingerbread man), and quite a few even threw some glitter on them.

We let them paint for a few days so everyone who comes at different times had a chance.  Then we used Mod Podge to seal them and added some cute ribbon.

I think we've made some of these every year and the girls always love them!