Monday Makery - Salt-Dough Decorations

Making Christmas decorations with salt-dough seems to be an accidental tradition in our family. I remember making them when I was young and now its my children's turn to have fun getting festive and creative.  A few years ago Sessi and I made a 'Merry Christmas' garland for granny who hangs it every year. I've been lusting after one for our home ever since.
Salt dough is like play dough only you deliberatly let it dry just as you would clay. You can create all sorts of ornaments and decorations with it and as its easy to make and easy to work with children will love being sculptors and decorators.

Here's what you'll need:

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup water 

I always add a little olive oil to the water to make it easier to work with and a little lemon juice to make it set harder.

Here's how:

1. Put the flour and salt to large mixing bowl and slowly add the water mixing as you go.
2. Knead the dough together until you've got a smooth and firm dough.

Now you can get creating. 

1. Roll out your dough so its 3-4mm thick and using cookies cutters cut out your chosen shapes. 
2. If you are making decorations to hang use the point of a pencil or the end of a skewer to make a hole. The hole will shrink ever so slightly so don't be scared to be a little vigorous with the prodding!
3. Place onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and leave for at least 24hrs to dry. Alternatively you can speed up the process a little by drying in the oven; I tend to cheat after having left them out overnight to discover they're still not dry, at which point I put them in the oven at 50C for an hour or two depending on how thick the pieces are. 
4. Once you're pieces are dry (and cooled) you can get busy painting them.
5. Once decorated you can hang them up to make a garland or tie little ribbons through to hang on the tree. They make great gift tags too.

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This is part of our Monday Makery where each week we bring you a recipe to bake, a craft to create and simple ideas for fun things to make with children. We know that sometimes the craft isn't about the final finish but having created something together and we want to encourage everyone to have a go. I am certainly a 'newbie' when it comes to making things and trust me I'll leave all baking recipes to my sister, you see the thing is my girls love it, they feed me with inspiration and I love that our home is a constant and evolving state of creating and creations.

Our daily blogs offer you a sneak preview in our 'once upon a week' where we give you an insight into a week with Sisters Guild, a guide to whats on, with places to visit and things to do with all the family in our 'Art of Living', on Tuesday we bring you a little closer to our designers and why we chose them with 'The Story behind Our Collections' and a little closer to the bloggers, crafters and friends of Sisters Guild with our fun 'Tell us its Tuesday', whilst on Wednesday we show you new arrivals and inspiring discoveries in the Sisters Guild Boutique. To find where we get our inspiration from take a look at 'An A-Z of Sisters Guild' ; a collection of images inspired by the words which express the meaning of what we believe.

Christmas is coming and we've been busy putting together a little inspiration to help you through. We're helping Father Christmas with his lists and guiding you though our selection of gifts and decorations.