Holiday break has officially started which gives parents ample time to figure out what to do with their kids for the next two weeks, maybe even longer if you have been snowed in for the past few days. If you decide to stay inside other then braving the cold you can make your own ornaments or if you are more adventurous a Nativity Scene.
Salt Dough (recipe here) is very popular in Poland since it is inexpensive, durable and versatile. You can purchase amazing ornaments and pieces from notable artists. The ones above where a gift from an artist friend of mine, beautiful right?
Since I am not that skilled I tend to focus on children crafts instead.
This way I can make my semi attractive artwork and say they were made by a toddler or tween. Just don’t ask me to draw since at this moment I am certain that my very talented 3 year old can draw better then I.
She can also make her own ornaments by using a cookie cutter and rolling balls for ornaments.
My son on the other hand is more like me, not an artist
more like a bulldozer, but since this dough works like play dough it is fun either way
So we made some Christmas Trees, using a cookie cutter
Here comes Santa Claus
We dig up our play dough set and used some of the containers to measure perfect circles
or rollers to give our snowman a nice even snow cap print
or just roll it in place staring in the distance
we made some ornament balls
some reindeer, don’t forget to make holes for string, sorry in case of the reindeer that was my only choice. Make sure to make the hole a little larger since it will close up a bit during baking.
Then free formed by hand another Santa and Snowman.
Bake in 350 degree oven until slightly golden (about 20 min). You can store the dough in wrapped in plastic for over a week in a fridge so no need to use it all at once.
When cooled paint with acrylic paints. My daughter however used Crayola washable paints (for obvious reasons) and they did start to crack a little on the surface when dried. You can always use markers to draw on them, whatever works for you. When finished hang on the tree, the walls, fridge, wherever you feel festive.
Or let your kids imagination shine:
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
We used to do this too as kids- I think my parents still have some ornaments from salt dough that we made and still hang them on the christmastree.
I thought about making it this year too but so far did not get around to it.
Cute rendeers!