Salt Dough Ornaments

Every year the girls make ornaments for granparents for Christmas. This year's offering was salt dough ornaments. The girls had lots of fun creating this year. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cups salt
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon alum
1 1/2 cups water

Mix dry ingredients. Add water gradually. Knead dough well. Dough is correct consistency when it forms a ball around spoon. Add additional water if the dough is too crumbly. Air dry until hard or bake at 300 degrees 30-40 minutes until hard.

The dough is thick, so you'll get a workout if you mix by hand. If you have a heavy duty stand mixer, use that! I added liquid food coloring to the dough to make it more fun. It takes quite a bit of food coloring to get darker colors. I used parchment paper when baking them. Don't forget to put a hook in the top before they harden if you are planning on making ornaments out of them.

Countdown to Christmas

Here's a cute and easy way to count down the days until Christmas! You'll need the following:

~A small piece of lightweight metal (can be found at a home improvement store. Mine is approx. 5 x 7). Make sure it's a metal that magnets will stick to (not aluminum).

~Two pieces of printed scrapbook paper

~1 piece of solid color cardstock

~various ribbons

~magnets (you can purchase either the magnet "buttons" or a strip of magnet that you can cut to size)

~Modge Podge

~Felt tipped pen

~stickers or cardstock letters/numbers (can be found at scrapbook stores or craft stores)

~glue

~scissors

~foam brush (to apply Modge Podge)

~hole punch

Here's how you do it:

1. Cut one of the printed sheets of printed scrapbook paper the same size as the piece of metal.

2. Place a thin layer of Modge Podge on the metal, place the cut piece of paper on top. Smooth out any wrinkles.

3. Cut the second piece of printed paper the same width as the piece of metal, and about 1/3rd of the length. Using Modge Podge, glue on to the bottom of the metal, smooth out any wrinkles.

4. After about 10 minutes, cover the front of the paper with a thin layer of Modge Podge (this will "seal" the paper and make it stronger and help keep the magnets from marking it).

5. Once dry, glue a piece of ribbon along the seam between the two pieces of paper.

6. Glue cardstock letters or place stickers along the bottom to read "days til Christmas. For my "Christmas" letters, I used the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook Cartridge.

7. Cut 12 shapes out of the solid color cardstock (I used circles, but you could use squares, tree shapes, ovals, triangles - whatever). I cut my circles on my Cricut machine using the Doodlecharms cartridge.

8. Glue a number onto each circle - 0-9. You'll need two number 1's and 2's. I used the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge for my numbers.

9. Outline/decorate the edge of each circle with a pen.

10. Punch a hole in the top of each circle and tie a small piece of ribbon on it.

12. Place a magnet on the back of each numbered circle.

11. If you have a hole punch that is strong enough to punch a hole in the metal you can do so then tie a length of ribbon through the holes to allow for it to be hung. Or, you could put magnets on the back and hang it on the fridge or display it on an easel.