Salt Dough Christmas Decorations - advice please

[Servalan]

Probably some silly questions here - I'm generally a little nervous about doing craft stuff with DD - it's very much out of my comfort zone so we've stuck pretty much to painting so far, but I'm considering making some salt dough Christmas tree decorations with her - the ones where you use cookie cutters to make stars etc and decorate.

She is 2yrs 5 months

So a few questions:

1. What's the best recipe?

1. What heat should I bake them on?

1. How long should I bake them for?

1. When we paint them afterwards, can DD use bog-standard poster paint or should it be something else?

1. I'm thinking of using glitter, but am a bit nervous about it - never used it with DD before and it seems to say on all the packets that it's not suitable for under 3 years olds, but I don't know how much that's a problem if I supervise closely? Is it safe for a 2 year old to use it? Anyone used to using it with 2 year olds and any tips?

1. Anything else we could decorate them with?

1. Do I need to varnish them afterwards? If so, what should I use?

1. How long do they "keep" for? Can I keep them for years afterwards?

Thanks

2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

mix salt and flour together, slowly add the water to make a dough - roughly about a cup. Kneed for 10 mins or until smooth and going into a nice round ball. Rest for 10 mins in a fridge. Roll out on a floured surface and use cutters to make whatever patterns you wish

You can air dry them (near radiator for a couple of days) or low low heat in an oven for a couple of hours. Keep low as you do not want them to brown or crack.

Decorate when rock hard and cold. Poster paints are fine, sprinkle glitter when pain still wet is good. My kids used paints and glitter from young age. As long as supervised and not eating the stuff, 2 yrs up is fine IMO

No need to varnish but can if you wish. I have used nail varnish in the past! Will keep for a good few years (ours still go on the tree several years old)

Oh, couple of other things:

With glitter, I put a small layer in the bottom of a deep plastic tub and get the kids to dip the item into the glitter rather than sprinkle it on. Less mess somehow.

If you use a pencil to push in near the top, you can cut a nice hole out for as piece of garden string to tie the item up. They do tend to be very heavy for a tree, but look lovely hanging on cupboard door handles. One year I got DD1 to make pretty small salt dough hearts and painted them christmassy red with cream edging. Popped in with some fir cones and giant golden bells, a couple of mini gold and red baubles as an alternative to pot pourri. Made a bowl of them for Nanny as a gift from DD1. Looked lovely

You've totally inspired me! Right, that'll be my 'good mother' deed for tomorrow then

Thanks so much for that Lemontart

Looking forward to a lovely craft day tomorrow!!

If you keep them in a dry place in an airtight container they'll keep for ages. i still bring out every Christmas the salt-dough tree decorations I made with ds and dd about 20 years ago!