Tutorilal: How to make christmas salt dough "cookie" ornaments

Hello and Happy Friday! With all my other projects going on with blogging, home school, Christmas presents, and sculptures I am so happy to have this tutorial checked off and done!  It is such a great craft because it costs next to nothing and is so classic and pretty.  I am a firm believer that one can never have too many ornaments. And that is probably why I have three Christmas trees up in my house. Not counting any trees smaller than three feet. If I count those then I have seven trees in my house. But we're getting off the subject, so on to the tutorial. :)

  These ornament "cookies" are super easy to make.

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You need:

• salt
• flour
• water
• cookie cutters
• rolling pin
• oven
• parchment paper
• clear glitter
• puff paint

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Combine 

1 cup salt

1 cup flour
(Seriously, that's it! Super easy to remember, too.) 
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Add Water

Just enough water to get the consistency of play dough; too much water makes it really difficult to roll and cut into shapes.

(I chilled my dough in the fridge to get it to roll better, but I probably could have added more flour and salt)
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Color
Add food coloring to get a gingerbread look.
I experimented till it turned a nice golden brown, but here is a guideline.
 10 drops of yellow
8 drops of red 
3 drops of green

(Optional: I added cinnamon & ginger mainly for smell, but the cinnamon does add a bit of color, too...I added at least a tablespoon of each, but the ornaments don't smell anymore, so I'll try adding more next time).

I added a lot of color to mine but they ended up darker after baking.  I think mine look a little more like chocolate cookies than gingerbread, but that also could be because I added blue and a little too much red...so, try out the recipe above, and change as you see fit.

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Roll Dough...

1/4 - 3/8 inches thick and cut out shapes on a well-floured surface.

(I rolled a few of mine too thin, and those cookies ended up pretty fragile.)

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Make the hole...

 in the top of each ornament using a straw.
(I found this surprisingly entertaining. The kids loved helping with this as well.)

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Bake

Preheat oven to 250

Place cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake cookies for three hours. Or till cookies are super hard, poke with a fork really hard and if they give they're not done.

(I know it is a long time but if they aren't fully cooked they end up fragile and crumbly. Some of my fave salt dough ornaments are lost due to under-cooking.)

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Cool

These babies are HOT so let them cool before decorating.

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Decorate

Frost each "cookie" using puff paint.

(I used white because I made snowflakes, but you can get creative. I used Tulip brand just fyi)

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Sprinkle...

 generously with glitter.

(I used a rough cut glitter that looked as much like sugar as I could find.)

Shake off any excess glitter.

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Dry...

in a safe place away from kids who might think these are real cookies :)
( No this is not from personal experience but my kids did ask if they could have one. Good thing I had real gingerbread cookies on hand to give them.)

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Hang,

with a string or an ornament hook on your tree. 
(You could also hang them in the window or use them as a decoration on a gift package.)

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Give
Since I made a double batch I have tons of extras to give as gifts.  
My double batch made about two dozen cookie ornaments, so this recipe should make one dozen.

 (I figured out a really easy way to make a cute little window in my origami boxes! Super awesome right?!! If I have time I'll make a tutorial on that.)

So go ahead and try it out! Tell me what you think. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact me. :) 
Oh and my new sculpture is up in the shop now.

I am linked up in these link parties.