Christmas Tree Decorations

Well here we are just 5 days to go till the Big Day---- hope you are all prepared!!! ( I'm not sure there is such a thing as being completely prepared.) Anyway I thought I would share a quick and easy variation of a salt dough that I found whilst searching the internet.

This was an american recipe that was measured in cups so I have converted it to tablespoons which makes it easy to knock up a small batch.

Ingredients

4 Tablespoons Baking Powder

2 Tablespoons Cornflour

3 Tablespoons Water

Mix the 3 ingredients in a saucepan and place on a low - medium heat. This will gradually bubble and thicken to form a stiffish ball similar to mashed potato. Place the dough in a clean bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Leave until cool, a batch this size only takes about 20mins.

Once cool knead until a smooth dough is formed then its ready to roll out. Its best to collect cutters, stamps, inks, baking sheets etc before rolling out. Heat oven to around 170F and line baking sheet with baking parchment.

Once the dough was rolled out I stamped various designs onto the dough before cutting out with different christmas shaped cookie cutters.

I used Archival ink pads as I wasn't sure whether the dye based ones would bleed. After cutting the first batch out I kneaded the remains of the dough and rolled out again. Where there was parts of ink in the dough it made a nice marbled effect.

These small shapes took about 45-50 mins turning over once after 25 mins. This will vary according to the size and thickness of your pieces.

This is how it looks once baked, I lightly sanded the edges to neaten before colouring with various waxes.

On this tree I used Treasure Gold in Ruby and Renaissance and finished with Inka Gold in Platinum.

Its amazing how quickly these shapes transform once you start to add colour.

I am entering these tree shapes into Clarity Stamps monthly Challenge titled 'Trees'

I would like to wish you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year. Hopefully we will meet again very soon in 2015. Take care and thank you as always for stopping by today.

Best Wishes Jane x