Christmas Decoration (Student Edition)

As a university student I rather not spend a lot of time on Christmas decorations.  I also don't have the money to invest in a lot of decorations.  The time leading up to Christmas is exams so I made this project as a way to procrastinate studying. Its all with items that you'll have around your house.  If you live in residence this craft might not be as possible, but for rez there's always paper snowflakes.

I made ornaments with salt dough.  For some people this might make sense, it seems to be a popular children activity.  Some of my friends made some growing up but I missed that memo.  I decided to try to make some tree decorations with it.

What you'll need:
-1 cup of flour
-1/4 cup of salt
-1/2 of water
-Food Coloring (Optional)
-Rolling Pin
-Shot glass or other glasses
-Knife
-Toothpick
-Parchment paper
-Ribbon or yarn


In a bowl add the flour and salt, in you measuring cup for the water mix in the food coloring.  I had a food coloring paste so I added 2 globs of it.  But you can use any type of food coloring that you have access too.  I thought blue looked kinda like ice which is winter themed.

Slowly mix in the colored water.  You want to get it to a cookie dough consistency, not to dry and not to wet. Lay out from parchment paper and plop your salt dough on to it. Roll it out till its about 1/4 of an inch thick.

I don't own any cookie cutters, so I had to improvise how to get the shapes for the ornaments.
With the shot glass covered with a bit of flour, press it in to the dough like a make shift cookie cutter.  Place them on a cookie sheet and you can turn your oven on to 150-200 degrees F (66-93 degrees C) at this point to let it preheat.

You can also use a knife to cut out shapes that you want. I made a few shapes but I didn't have the patience to cut out that many.  As a student with silly roommates some not safe work ornaments were made...

With your toothpick poke a hole so you can later thread your ribbon or yarn through it.

Place your tray in the oven for about half an hour.  You want to try out the ornaments but not burn them.  The bottom of mine where a little brown but over all they looked pretty good. I probably should have taken them out a few minutes earlier.

Going into the oven

Coming out of the oven

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Let them cool down, thread the ribbon through them and place them on your tree if you have one or place them around your home.   If you have any paints you can paint it as you want, and find ways to decorate it.   

If you try this or have done salt dough before let me know in the comments below. 

Zoe