We woke up to a winter wonderland! And after quite a bit of snow disappointment too. We were told there would be snow on Monday – nothing. Tuesday for sure – nothing. Wednesday we would be buried! Nothing. Thursday: get those parkas out – nothing. Friday the snow finally arrived! But for some reason not in our tiny patch of the woods.
But Sunday. Sunday was our snow day. All of the anticipation had built up to make this snowy day very, very special. Sleds were out, cheeks were rosy, clothing was soaked, and all before Mama’s coffee.
So I encouraged (bribed) those little ones of mine inside with the promise of Christmas ornament crafting.
We make salt dough Christmas ornaments every single year. I have had really good luck with them standing up to the test of time too. I simply wrap them in paper towel and tuck them into the Christmas ornament box.
I use a very simple slat dough recipe:
1 cup of salt, 1 cup of water, and 2 cups of flour.
It makes a nice big batch of salt dough, perfect for all 3 of my little ones to get crafty with.
This year we had tons and tons of whole cloves left over from a different crafting project, so I thought we could cut out some gingerbread men and decorate them with the cloves. If nothing else, I knew they would smell heavenly.
The Christmas ornaments were a big hit with all of my kids (which is not often, given the 10 year age span) and they turned out super cute!
The cloves were nice and easy to poke into the salt dough gingerbread men and it smelled lovely as we worked too.
We then baked them in a 300 degree oven for all eternity (or about 3 hours) which made the entire house smell divine.
We headed back out to the snow and when we came inside the boys were terribly disappointed to know that the lovely smell was the Christmas ornaments and not Christmas cookies (seriously though boys, who would have made the cookies? We were all outside sledding … Details I suppose.)
The ornaments worked perfectly and will look beautiful on our tree for years to come.
I hope you had a lovely weekend friends and you are all set for the week ahead!
Thank you so very much for reading.
Ellie says
December 14, 2016 at 2:50 amThis is one of my favorite Christmas crafts! So many childhood memories making these with my cousins.
Sarah says
January 4, 2017 at 9:54 pmWe love salt dough ornaments too – so happy to be able to remind you of happy memories!
JoAnna Sero says
December 14, 2019 at 9:27 amI recently got a new (to me) book called Tough Cookie by Edward Hemingway – the main character thinks he is a sweet sugar cookie man, but it turns out he is a salt ornament. Such a neat book, and would be a lovely tie in if you are making these ornaments with your class (or even for home!).