I first learned to make these when I was a little girl in Germany while my father was stationed there. I don't remember exactly who taught us to make them, or when, but I've been making them since about the age of five and have made probably a thousand. My mom actually has a cute story about how once when she has a migraine I told her, don't worry, I'll entertain myself and do salt dough. Apparently there was some in the fridge. I got it out and made what turned out to be my mom's favorite work of art in the house, little brown and white salt dough people, all crooked and wonky, but to this day I'm very proud. So, when I tried to think of a home made decoration to make with Laylah this year (we've made something different together every Christmas since she was born) I thought it was time to introduce her to salt dough ornaments. I've made salt dough with her before for other things. It's a super easy play dough type substance that I usually always have all the ingredients for, but we've never made Christmas ornaments out of it. This year our goal came in the form of the Pottery Barn Christmas catalogue. It had several really pretty snowflakes in it. I'm a sucker for snowflake ornaments. The sparkle, the individuality, the romance. So we made our dough, put the catalogue in front of us and got to work copying the $12 a piece ornaments with .50 cents worth of dough. I think ours turned out better than theirs and they will always mean more.
Salt Dough Ornaments
2 parts flour
1 part salt
1 part water
Mix everything together until it forms a smooth dough.
You can add food coloring or natural coloring (in Germany we added instant coffee to the water before adding it, making a nice warm brown), or you can paint the pieces after you bake them. Make into whatever shapes you wish. We've made little people, handprints, we've used cookie cutters, wreaths, hearts, whatever, just make sure to put a hole somewhere to thread a ribbon through to hang them up on the tree or the wall. Another things we always did in Germany was used whole cloves for the eyes and a garlic press to squish out some ropes of hair. This time Laylah and I made snowflakes and other christmassy figurines. Bake in a 250 degree oven for around two hours depending on the thickness of the figure you've made.
For thicker figures you'll want to take them out and turn them over half way through to make sure the underside gets cooked. They are ready when they are hard all the way through and pushing a fingernail into the back doesn't make a mark. 
Let them cool then decorate. This time Laylah and I painted our snowflakes silver and added white glitter, they turned out spectacular!
