INTERIOR DESIGN: stamped dough ornaments

In my last blog post, Bright White Clay Dough, I shared a recipe and directions for how to make your own white clay dough and ornaments using cornstarch, baking soda, water, and a little creativity.

Now let's take it a step further and make some ornaments with doily imprints on them! Your friends and family will be so impressed and will think that you spent hours working on these, when in reality, they are super simple to make and take no time at all.

To make these you will need one batch

of Bright White Clay Dough. The recipe

and directions can be found here.

Unlike salt dough (which has a golden appearance),
Clay Dough has a silky texture and does not darken
during baking but remains a bright white.

Doily Print Clay Dough Ornaments

Prepare a batch of clay dough as directed here.

Roll clay to 1/4 thickness. Position doily on clay as desired.

Using a rolling pin, gently imprint the doily into the dough by rolling back and

forth a few times.

Slowly remove the doily to reveal your doily-imprinted clay.

Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and bake as directed in the recipe.

Completed baked clay dough ornament.

You can leave them white, or add color...

Here are the results of my color experiments:

If you want to create a contrast, gently blot the finished design with an ink pad.

Here is the same star from above. I blotted it with a damp paper towel to soften

the ink and spread the color throughout the ornament.

Next I blotted it with white ink. I like this snowy effect.

Here it is with a heavy blue coat of ink.

What do you think?

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This easy salt dough recipe is perfect for making ornaments and gift tags! Not only is this recipe simple, it's also inexpensive, and you probably already have all of the ingredients right in your kitchen cabinet. Classic salt dough is the perfect afternoon project to make with your kids! I had my 8 and 10 year old daughters help with this recipe, and they were excited to craft some ornaments to give as gifts for friends and family.

Classic Salt Dough
2 cups of flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of warm water
Directions
1. Mix salt, flour and water in a mixing bowl until a dough
forms.
2. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface, adding additional
flour if needed, until a soft, smooth dough forms.
3. If rolling out dough with a rolling pin, do so on lightly
floured parchment paper.
4. Bake finished creations on a parchment paper covered
cookie sheet in a warm oven (I did mine at 200 degrees F for
about three hours, flipping them over about half way through
baking.)
5. Once completely dry, finished salt dough creations can be
painted with acrylic craft paints and sealed with a craft sealant.
6. Wrap unused dough in plastic wrap to keep it fresh. Use
unused dough within a few days.

Stamped Salt Dough Ornaments
1. Roll out dough on lightly floured parchment paper until dough is 1/4 thick.
2. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes.
3. Use a toothpick to make a hole in each ornament so that you have a way to hang them.
4. Stamp dough with rubber stamps - either inked or uninked.
5. Bake as directed above.
If you prefer, you can stamp your dough before cutting out shapes with cookie
cutters instead of cutting and then stamping. I tried it both ways and the results
were just about the same with each method.

Knead until a soft dough forms

I love how little hands are always so eager to help!

Wrap unused dough in plastic wrap to keep it fresh. This photo shows how much this recipe makes.

I divided it into three balls, each is the size of a large handful.

Roll out dough on lightly floured parchment paper until dough is 1/4 thick.

The dough should be completely smooth, without any crack or wrinkles. If you bake an ornament that had a crack in the dough before you baked it, the baking will shrink the dough a bit, and your finished ornament will have a actual crack, so be sure to really knead that dough until it is super-smooth. If it's too dry when you begin to knead it, add water a few drops at a time to soften the dough and make it more pliable.

Pick out some cookie cutters

Use cookie cutters to cut shapes.

I didn't even know I had this cookie cutter until my kids dumped out the bag and found

it...upside down basket? mushroom? Now it is! Awesome!

Use a toothpick to make a hole in each ornament so that you have a way to hang them!

To make a nice clean hole without marring the edge, I put the toothpick straight into the

dough and then used a circular or stirring motion to widen the hole. I made the holes about

3mm, and the reason I can give you that exact size off the top of my head is because I know my

bead sizes! We jewelry artists and beaders know our millimeter bead sizes like the back of our hands!

These are ready to go into the oven.

OR...

We can get fancy!

I thought this Stampin' Up rubber stamp that I had would go well with the woodland

theme of our cookie cutter.

I inked the stamp on a regular green ink pad, and as you can see, I made two mistakes.

First, I probably pressed a little too hard with the stamp on the dough, and second,

I should have been more careful when inking my stamp as to not get ink on the edges

of the stamp. That is, if we were going for perfection. But we weren't, we were going

for fun and I sort of like the handcrafted look of this one of a kind mushroom!

For this next one I tried a birds nest stamp and metallic silver ink.

I was more careful this time when inking and stamping.

Once all were stamped, I baked them in a 200 degree F oven for close to three hours,

flipping them over about half way through baking. The parchment paper made them

very easy to flip.

The final result: After a little trial and error our stamped ornaments were looking good!

Both the raw dough and the finished, baked ornaments had a natural, bread color

that got darker with baking. They had a nice organic look and feel to them.

Later...

We had a lot of fun making salt dough, but next, we wanted to try something a little bit
different... so next we created a batch of Bright White Clay Dough!