Salt dough ornaments are fun and easy to make. They are perfect gifts for family members and loved ones. Handprint ornaments are a great way to hold on to the memories of when your child was young. They are only little for a little while, make tons of handprint keepsakes while you still can. Learn how to make Santa and friends handprint salt dough ornaments here.

How cute are these Santa and friends’ handprint ornaments? They are amazingly cute!  If anyone knows me they know that I’m all about keepsake crafts.  I love anything made with handprints and footprints. 

I have two children a daughter aged 5 and a son aged 2.  When my daughter was 6 weeks old, the handprint and footprint crafts started.  I love looking back to her tiny little hands and feet.  Every holiday season I make new handprint ornaments. 

I love looking at my Christmas tree and seeing how much my children have grown.  Even though they are still little, they grow so fast.  When they are big, I will always have something to look back on and remember when they were small.

I love using salt dough.  It’s inexpensive and so easy to make.  It is also very easy to roll out and work with.  I use it to make all kinds of crafts and keepsake ornaments. I use a 3 ingredient recipe.  Most people already have the ingredients at home.  The recipe is made with flour, salt, and water.

Recipe

2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water

Directions 

In a bowl combine the flour and salt.

Add in one cup of water.  Mix all the ingredients, then knead for about 3-5 minutes.  If your dough is too dry add a little water.  If your dough is too sticky add a little bit of flour.

Once your dough is smooth you’re ready to make your ornaments.

Salt Dough Ornaments 

Once your dough is made you are ready to make your ornaments.  At first, my two-year-old was not cooperating.  He would not let me stick his hand in the dough.  He did let me trace his hand on a piece of construction paper.  I figured it easy easier to trace both of my children’s hands on the construction paper and then use it as a tracer on the dough.  After I traced their hands I used an Exacto knife to cut out their hands.

They came out perfect.

Next, using a pencil we poked holes in our hands.  The hands that we were going to use for the reindeer and the elf we poked the hole on the top of the hand.  For the hand that we were going to use for the Santa, we poked a hole at the bottom of the palm of the hand.

We baked the ornament at 200 degrees for one hour.  We flipped them over halfway through.  The clay should turn a whitish color when it is done.

Salt Dough Santa Ornament 

The first ornament we decided to make was the Santa Claus ornament, after all he is the boss, atleast that is what my daughter calls him.

Materials

• Red and flesh color acrylic paint
• two googly eyes
• 1 white cotton ball
• 1 small pom-pom for Santa’s nose, we used red
• a white pom-pom for Santa’s hat.

Directions

First, we wanted to make Santa’s face.  To do this we painted the palm of the hand using the flesh-colored paint.

Using the white paint, we painted the fingers of the hand to make Santa’s beard.

To make Santa’s hat we painted the thumb and the top of the palm red.

After the paint dried it was time to decorate Santa.  We stretched out one cotton ball and ripped it in two.  My daughter glued one part on the bottom of Santa’s hat to make the fur. Next, we used the second part to make Santa’s mustache.  We used a tiny red pom-pom to make Santa’s nose and a white/silver pom-pom to make the ball at the end of Santa’s hat.  Last we glued on two googly eyes to make eyes for Santa.

If you want to jazz up Santa, you can add some red glitter to his hat!

Salt Dough Reindeer Ornament

What is Santa without his reindeer?  For our next ornament, we make a reindeer, and not just any reindeer but Rudolf the Reindeer of course.

Materials

• Brown acrylic paint
• Large red pom-pom
• Blue, red, green, and yellow acrylic paint for the Christmas lights
• 2 googly eyes
• Black Sharpie
• paintbrush

Directions

To make Rudolf the first thing you are going to do it paint the entire hand brown.  Once the paint is dry you are going to paint the back of the hand brown.  You only need a light coat of paint so it takes about five minutes to dry.  After the brown paint is dry, you are going to start making the Christmas lights.

To make the Christmas lights, you are going to dip the end of the paintbrush into the yellow paint and make a couple of dots on each of the fingers.  You are going to repeat this with each color.

When the paint is dry, you are going to connect the dots using the black sharpie.  This will make the Christmas lights look like a string of lights.

Next, you are going to glue two googly eyes onto Rudolf and the big red pom-pom to make his famous red nose. I used a gold pipe cleaner to put through the hold to hang on my tree.

Salt Dough Santa’s Elf Ornament 

Now that you have Santa and Rudolf, you are going to need an elf because after the elves do most of the work!

Materials

• Green, pink and flesh-colored acrylic paint
• Four red pom-poms
• Black Sharpie
• Paint Brush

Directions

Paint the palm of the hand, the pinky and the thumb using the flesh-colored paint.  This will make the elf’s face and ears.

Next, paint the remaining fingers green, this will be the elf’s hat.

Now it is time to decorate your elf. The first thing that I did was line the bottom of the elf hat with white using a stretched out cotton ball.  I glued the “fur” at the bottom of the three green fingers as pictured below.

The next thing I did was decorate the elf hat.  I used three small red pom-poms and glued them to the tops of the three green fingers as pictured below.  If you don’t have red, you can use any color you like or even multi-colored.  It’s your elf, be creative!  I also glued on two googly eyes and a small red pom-pom for the elf’s nose.  I used a sharpie to draw the mouth.  The very last thing I did was make rosy cheeks.  I used a pale pink color.  I just made two small round circles just below the nose, one on each side.

My children and I had so much fun making Santa and friends salt dough ornaments.  We had some extra dough left over so my daughter took out our Christmas cookie cutters to make more ornaments.  She wanted everyone in our family to have a handmade ornament.  My daughter also made an extra Santa ornament for her teacher.  She wanted to give sometime to her teacher to always remember her.

Thank you for visiting kidsplayandcreate.com  Happy Holidays!