Salt Dough Ornaments
Children of the 7o’s: do you remember this? Salt dough is a simple dough made of equal parts cooking salt, white flour and half the amount of water. (a standard batch is 1 cup flour, I cup salt, 1/2 cup warm water). It will be a little grainy but its basically the recipe that many of our Mom’s used to make standard play dough. Here’s what you’ll need for the craft:
the salt dough mixture
rolling pin (or wine bottle :)
baking sheet
cookie cutters
straw (to punch a hole to thread through)
acrylic paint and some small brushes
variety of household stuff to emboss the dough with-buttons, lego, forks, toothpicks,leaves, lace,etc-anything that makes an interesting mark
ribbon or twine
On a lightly floured surface, roll out your dough to about a half-inch thickness , cut your shapes with the cookie cutters and punch a hole in the top. Sit together and try out all your tools, experimenting with what marks you like best. Pop them onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake them at 120 degrees for about an hour, turning them once. After they cool, decorate with paint or glitter or decorate with crayons while they are still warm to get vibrant results. String and hang.
Paper roll Reindeer
Save some toilet roll spindles to make this easy christmas craft. You’ll also need:
christmas wrapping paper
scissors
pipe cleaners
clear tape
construction paper in brown, white,red felts or crayons
mini pompoms and google eyes-you can make both with paper but Hema sells them and kids freaking love them-optional
white glue or glue stick
Start by trimming the wrapping paper to the size of the roll. Secure it with tape in the middle so it covers the roll. Then cut out a triangle proportionate to the size of the roll. Apply glue to the back and glue it on the top of the roll to make the head. Cut out paper ears and (white eyes with pupil drawn in and add them. Trim the pipe cleaner and old them to look like antlers and tape them on the back of the deer. Add a nose and any other festive details. Bits of ribbon can look nice on top.