Be Mine Bonanza: Day 6-Free Form Salt Dough Heart Ornaments

Hello everyone! I am Sarah from All Roads Lead Home and I am so excited to be guest posting on Kindra’s wonderful blog today! I came up with a fun craft for the Be Mine Bonanza that I hope you will all enjoy! Let’s get started.

Using a standard salt dough recipe as follows ::

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup warm water

Mix flour & salt together, add warm water. Knead until dough is smooth. You will want your surface floured well.

Take small pieces of your dough and roll into a long rope. Then the free forming begins! Shape your rope into a heart. Use your imagination and make curly q’s, twist two ropes together, use a knife to score your dough. Have fun with it! You can use a little dab of water to stick your hearts together at the seams. Just press lightly to seal.

Then you will place your hearts on a foil lined cookie sheet. And bake at 300 degrees for 45-60 min. Keep an eye on them for the last few minutes. You don’t want them to get too done.

When they are baked and cooled. I just use regular craft paints to bring them to life! Then I rough them up a bit with sandpaper to give them a distressed look. *Sand gently* or you might snap your creation in half!

This step is optional but I like the antique look it gives. Take watered down dark brown craft paint and brush it on. With a paper towel dab off the excess.

Once your paint is dry it is time to dip. I use clear paraffin. I made a double boiler out of a sauce pan and a glass bowl. Place just enough water into the sauce pan so that it is not touching the glass bowl. Let your wax completely liquefy, turn off heat and begin carefully dipping and placing your hearts onto wax paper to set.

Now we are ready to make our ornaments! I bought individual scrapbook paper on clearance for 29 cents a sheet. And ribbon on sale for 59- 99 cents a roll.

Take your scrapbook paper, place your heart on it and trace around. Cut out your heart shape. Add your ribbon before gluing your paper to the back of your ornament.

I used these little ZOTS to stick my paper onto my heart. Just place a ZOT in the upper left, right, middle and bottom. You could probably use a dot of hot glue for this step too.

One other step that is totally optional, I took rubber stamps and stamped some festive messages onto the plain red scrapbook paper.

Now you are ready to hang them on your Valentine tree!

A few more close ups ::

I hope you will give this project a try. It is inexpensive and fun! Great for any holiday! And think of all the different things you could do! Black and white photos of the ones you love would be cute framed in these too! What you do is up to you!! Enjoy!

Thanks so much Kindra for letting me be a part of this fun event!

Until next time, take care.

~Sarah~

I sure like the idea of adding black and white photos to these ornaments! I thought these were pretty clever!
Sarah and I met through blogging 2 years ago. And coincidently, we only live 20 minutes from each other. :) Fun, huh?! Sarah has an eye for decorating her home and is known for her great thrifty makeovers on junk items! Thank you, Sarah, for sharing your salt dough valentines with us!