Salt Dough Hand Keepsakes

This week, Leo and I tried our hand (get it? Ha!) at salt dough ornaments. Cheap and easy!

Salt Dough Recipe

1/2 cup table salt

1 cup flour

1/2 cup water (approx)

Step 1: 

Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl. Slowly add the water, Remembering that the measurement above is just a guide, You may need more or less. You want your dough to come together sort of like cookie dough and not sticky!

Step 2:

Knead dough and roll out until about 5mm. I still have no idea where my rolling pin is (How do you even lose something like that?) so we used a bottle of wine which left our dough uneven. Oh well!

Step 3:

Push your hand into the dough as hard as you can. Cut around handprint and make a hole with a skewer. 

Step 4:

On a baking paper lined tray, Bake in the oven at 100C for 3-4 hours. I flipped the ornaments at the 3 hour mark. Again this is all a rough estimate. They should be hard and not have any "give"

Step 5:

Once fully dry - We left our salt dough out to dry over night "Just in case" - unleash your artist and paint them using acrylic paints. 

Step 6:

String them up and admire!

We only needed 3 hand (They are Fathers Day gifts) so we played around with the remainder of the dough using a star cookie cutter, a Mickey Mouse toast press and even sculpted a tiny snake!

I think they turned out really sweet! The dads in our family are going to love them!