Finished Product: Salt Dough Ornaments!

The older Quinn gets, the more she wants to do her own little projects and try to help me when I do mine. She's at an age where she really does a decent job with not too much direction.

I've been searching around for Christmas projects that she could do that don't require cutting, sewing, or too many steps from me to get to a finished product. She could sit for hours coloring or painting, so I figured that might be a good place to start. When I came across these Salt Dough Ornaments I knew I found what I was looking for.

Granted, I'd have some initial work to do, but once that was out of the way, I could easily just set her up with some paintbrushes and let her go to town, so to speak. Here's how it went:

Salt Dough Ornaments

It looks like there's more involved than there really is.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup lukewarm water

Directions:

1. Mix salt and flour in mixing bowl
2. Add water
3. Knead with your hands until it forms into a dough-like consistency. If too dry, add a little water. If too sticky, add a little flour.
4. Roll your dough into an even, flat disc on work surface/wax paper. Use flour to keep dough from sticking.
5. Do not roll too thin, especially if you'll be  making handprints as the hand printing will thin dough in areas.
6. Use cookie cutters to cut into shapes. Make sure to make a hole at the top of each piece so you can hang them!
7. Let air dry for 4 days! On the 2nd day, flip the ornaments over so the underside dries as well.
8. Then paint however you like. Check out the original website for some cute ideas and additional ways to preserve your ornaments!

I picked out some shapes that I thought Quinn would enjoy painting: A star, Christmas tree, snowman, and scalloped circle.

This small amount of dough ended up making quite a few ornaments. But I still wanted more so I made another half batch.

Quinn helped flatten the second batch.

I had Quinn make thumbprints on the big circle ones.

I wanted Mitchell's thumbprints, too, but he kept trying to pick them up or step on them.

I ended up with 14 ornaments.

Quinn had really hoped to help more than just the 30 seconds it took for her to make a few thumbprints. And both kids thought these were cookies and kept asking to eat them! Poor kids. And now we wait...

And wait...

And wait... Geez, this is taking forever! I should've picked the kind you cook in the oven so I didn't have to wait...

And... We're BACK!!!!

Next time I want to make these, please remind me that the whole process involves a lot of waiting!! After I waited the 4 excruciatingly long days for these to dry, I had to wait an hour or so in between every layer of paint. The waiting also proved to me that Quinn gets her lack of patience from me. I heard from her several times per day that she wanted to paint some more. Hahaha... I knew she'd love painting.

In the interest of saving space, I made a few photo collages of us working on these ornaments:

I gave her the stars and some yellow paint, then left her to her own devices for about 15 minutes until she yelled out to me, "Mama!! I'm done with the stars!!"

Then I gave her the Christmas trees and some green paint. 15 minutes later, I heard, "Mama!! I love painting! Can I paint some more!?"

Finally, I gave her the snowmen and the scalloped circles and a lot of white paint and sat my butt on the couch and cuddled with Mitchell while he watched "Frozen." Quinn wasn't even jealous that she was missing out on her "build a snowman movie."

We ended up having to shelve this craft for a couple of days due to our busy schedule. But don't think Quinn gave up on it so easily. She still asked me 100 times a day if she could paint.

Finally, it was time to paint again!!

Painting party, take 2!

I painted a couple of black lines on the trees and let her make little "light bulbs" on them. She liked getting to switch colors every couple of minutes!

I didn't know what to do with the stars, so I told her she could make smiley faces on them.

When it came to the snowmen, she needed the least amount of direction. The minute she saw them, she asked, "You want me to put buttons on them?" Side note: She can't say "button." Instead, she says, "Bunt." It's so cute. I correct her but I don't think she thinks she's saying it wrong.

Lefty? Righty? He can't decide!!! Although he seems like a lefty to me.

At this point, Quinn and I had been ignoring Mitchell for a while and he was getting quite bored, so I scooped him up and let him paint a star. He actually did pretty well for a 1 and 3/4 year old! I was pretty impressed.

Sibling love!!

Always the big sister, Quinn supervised Mitchell the entire time he held the paint brush. She was certain he was painting a pirate. P.S. His looks nothing like a pirate, just random squiggly lines.

Shameless (and least flattering) selfie time!

When it came to painting the scalloped circles that had the kids thumbprints in them, I decided to do it myself. I turned the thumbprints into little Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. I enjoyed painting my little part, too!

When they were all finished, it was time to string them up. I made little holes in the tops of them, but soon realized that my ribbon was too big to easily do the job. I had an idea. I grabbed my sewing kit...

I had to put this stuff on an envelope so you could see the needle.

I threaded a needle, then attached my ribbon to the end of the thread. This made it really easy to pull the ribbon through the tiny holes. I also threaded them all at once, then cut the ribbon for each one. I feel like this saved time.

Uh oh!!! What happened??!?!!?

Maybe it wasn't as easy as I thought. When I was stringing one of the stars, I dropped it from my hand onto the counter. It was like a 1ft drop. Not even. And that little guy just shattered. Quinn apologized profusely because I'd been reminding her not to drop them and break them. I think she thought she did it. She's so sweet. Luckily, it didn't take much convincing that her mother was the destructive force of this situation.

And here are the ones that I didn't ruin:

The 3 weird (and sad looking) snowmen.

The 3 trees that came out pretty good.

Quinn's "smiley face" stars on the ends and Mitchell's "Jackson Pollack" in the middle.

I made 4 of these. They all look the same. You get the idea.

I'm glad I was able to get the kids thumbprints in the ornaments. I mean, I don't have access to their actual thumbprint, more so just the size of their fingerprint, but maybe when they're older, they'll get a kick out of the fact that they had such small thums. And they have tangible proof of it!

I made these with the intention of giving them out to some family members along with their gifts on Christmas, but I don't know how I'll manage to part with any of them!! They're all so cute, even though they came out pretty crap-tacular (I guess I won't be starting a salt dough ornament business any time soon).

When Joe got home from work and saw our finished product, he looked at me, and said, pleadingly, "So, I hope this means we won't have to spend $20 on a family commemorative mall ornaments this year?!" Uhh.. Wrong, Joe!! You're not gonna get out of it THAT easily!! I love those expensive mall ornaments with our names on them (-;