| My girls and I had an ornament-making party early in December. This year we tried something new to us, ornaments made of dough. We used Christmas cookie cutters to cut the basic shapes, then we embellished, baked, painted and varnished them.
The recipe:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cup water
Dissolve the salt in warm water. Add the flour. Mix thoroughly. Knead until mixture forms a soft dough.
Roll dough to desired thickness and cut with cookie cutters or mold dough by hand into desired shapes. Remember to poke a hole in your ornament before baking so that you can add a hanging cord.
Place shapes on cookie sheet. Bake in 300 degree oven, keeping an eye on them and removing when dry. Baking time will be determined by thickness of ornament.
Paint as desired. We used acrylic paints. On some of the ornaments we added some sparkle paint for extra glitter and pizazz. Allow to dry thoroughly. Varnish. We used a glossy varnish to get a shiny finish. Tie on a hanging cord.
In October 2005, I received a very nice e-mail from an online friend, Marueen Hewitt who lives in Australia. She told me of a different dough recipe that may be easier to make and give better results. Here's an exerpt from her letter:
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Instead of the ingredients you used, try fine white breadcrumbs mixed with white woodworking glue, called PVA here in Australia. Simply process the bread in a food processor to get the finest breadcrumbs possible, then add white glue until a dough forms. You mix the two together, no real recipe, till you get a nice dough. Once it's kneaded it's very soft and smooth. If you add too much glue, add more breadcrumbs and vice versa. You just use it as you need to and leave it to dry. It dries nice and white and hard like ceramic, no baking required. The glue is safe and non toxic, so very good to work with.
I have made so many things with this dough and I have to say it's so easy to make and beautiful to work with, much nicer than salt dough in every respect, and no baking is great. Using white bread gives you a lovely colour once it's dry, some things don't even need to be painted depending on the project.
My first project with it was a wooden door wedge that I made tiny little roses and leaves for, then painted with acrylic paints and varnished when I was done, although I have since found the unvarnished ones look so much nicer. I have made all sorts of items that you would not think of normally, jewelery, frames, pots, anything you can imagine really. You are only limited by your imagination.
If you have a similar glue you can buy, it's good fun and so simple and easy, even children can do it because of the safety of the glue, it's completely water based as well. I have also found a new use for it as a sort of sealer on all sorts of items, you paint it on neat and it dries clear and shiny.
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Last updated November 01, 2005.
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