Salt dough decorations are a great gift idea for your little ones to give family and friends at Christmas time. They're super easy too and once baked will keep pretty much forever. Bella is wrapping these up individually in cellophane bags, tying with a ribbon and adding a handmade tag to give out as her Christmas gifts to our close family. To make up a batch of salt dough you will need: 2 cups of plain flour, once cup of table salt, one cup of water, one tablespoon of lemon juice (this helps the dough dry nice and hard), and one tablespoon of olive oil. You will also need a cookie cutter in the shape of your choice, a straw (to punch out the hole in the top) and some food colouring if you wish to colour your dough. Another option is to paint the decorations once they are dry. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl as shown in the above photo. Seperate the mix and add add a few drops of food colouring to each salt dough ball - you'll need to work the colour through the dough with your hands. On a floured surface roll or push the dough out flat and use a cookie cutter to cut out the desired shape. Our trees were about 1cm thick. Decorate with more salt dough and use a straw to poke a hole in the top of the decoration for hanging. Transfer the decorations onto a cooking tray (we lined this with baking paper first to prevent sticking). Bake on a very slow oven for a couple of hours until dry/hard. Our oven temperature was 120 degrees.
Once they are dry add a layer of varnish or mod podge - we added some glitter to ours as well. Tie a ribbon or twine through the hole at the top and you're all done :)
