12 Days of Kid's Christmas Crafts #4

Here's a new twist on an old favorite - microwave salt dough Christmas ornaments. Just follow the simple recipe, cut out your favorite cookie cutter shapes, and microwave a plate of ornaments at a time.

If you are looking for some fun and inexpensive crafts to do this Christmas, making ornaments with salt dough is a good choice. Basically, with salt, flour, water and some decorations you can make beautiful ornaments to give as gifts to family and friends.

4 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
1-1/2 cups of hot water
holiday cookie cutters
decorations - glitter, paint, beads, etc.

Mix all the ingredients together.

Use Christmas cookie cutters to cut a variety of Christmas themed icons.

Use a toothpick to make a hole for hanging, being sure to make the hole a little larger than you will want as the dough tends to shrink when baking.

Using a microwave-safe plate (not paper or cardboard), microwave a plate of your ornaments for 1 to 4 minutes, increasing the time by 1 minute increments and keeping a close eye on the microwave as the ornaments bake. Microwave power levels differ greatly, so use high power in a less-powerful oven, but the lower power setting it if your oven tends to heat things very quickly. Let the ornaments cool completely before decorating.

Properly dried the ornaments should last for years.