One of my favorite parts of decorating for Christmas is looking through all of the ornaments we’ve collected over the last couple years. Each ornament can have it’s own story and the kids love asking questions about each and every one. It’s a tradition of ours every year to make handprint and footprint salt dough ornaments for our tree, they make the perfect keepsake for those little hands and feet. This year we tried to do one of my son’s favorite characters Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the end result turned out pretty awesome!
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Here’s what you’ll need:
- 1 Cup of salt
- 2 Cups of flour
- 1 Cup of water
- Acrylic Paint
- Mod Podge
- Paint Brushes
- Ribbon
- Felt
- Googly Eyes
Directions:
First you’ll combine your salt and flour in a bowl and slowly add in the water. Continue until it is dough light and not too sticky. If the dough is too dry you can add more water. After kneading the dough you’ll flatten it out with a rolling pin. The kids love helping with this part! Next have your child place their hand in the dough. Next you can trace around their handprint leaving a little border around the print so that you have enough room to poke a hole for your ribbon. Poke a hole through the top using a straw so that you can hang them when your done and bake these for two to three hours at around 100 degrees C/ 200 F. If your ornament is thick you may need to turn it over while it’s cooking.
When your ornaments are done cooking, let them cool for a few hours before painting. While you’re waiting you can make the eye masks with your piece of felt. Cut out a shape for their eye masks and glue two googly eyes onto it. Then when the ornaments have cooled off paint the handprint green and your border whatever color you’d like.
Once the paint has dried you can glue your eye masks onto your ninja turtle, I used a hot glue gun for this part to make sure that the eye masks wouldn’t fall off. Then take your black paint and paint the mouth of the turtle. You can sign the name and date on the back, then hang them on the tree!
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