How To Make Handprint Salt-Dough Nativity Ornament

This handprint salt-dough nativity ornament is simple to make with children and can be used to teach them the real meaning of Christmas.

Christmas is all about God sending us the greatest gift ever, His son Jesus to earth as a baby. With two young children in the house, we try to do many things through the Christmas season to help teach them what Christmas is all about.

This handprint salt-dough nativity ornament was one of the things we chose to do with the children and it was fun to make with them. Explaining to them the story behind what we were making as we were doing it was fun as well and the ornaments now hang on our tree as a reminder to both us and them.

How To Make Handprint Salt-Dough Ornaments:

You will need:

This makes about 2 toddler-sized handprint ornaments. See the bottom of the post for what we did with the extra dough.

• 1 c. Flour
• 1/2 c. Salt
• 1/2 c. Water
• Parchment Paper

Directions For Salt Dough:

1. First, mix the flour and salt in a bowl
2. Then, stir in the water
3. Use your hands and knead the dough to ensure you mix it thoroughly. (You do not want the dough to stick to your hands or the table or have extra flour on the dough. Getting the consistency right is important)
4. Add more flour or water to ensure the consistency of your dough.
5. Once you have your dough right, take a ball of dough and place it on some parchment paper.
6. Then, either roll the dough into a flat circle or place another piece of parchment paper on top of it and squish it flat with a book. You don’t want the dough too thin or it will break easily but you don’t want it too thick either or it will take forever to dry. I roll mine about a quarter inch thick.
7. Once flat, poke a hole in the top of the circle so that you can thread a ribbon through it later to hang it.

8. Next you will want to have your children press their hands in the dough to make their handprints. Make sure to press them deep in the dough so that they have enough room to paint.

9. Bake the ornaments at 200 degrees Fahrenheit until they are hard, about 2 hours. How long they take will depend on how thick your ornaments are, check them frequently after the first hour, sometimes they will finish very quickly.
10. The ornaments will be hard when you tap on them with your fingers, if they are still soft and squishy in spots then they are not done yet.
11. When they are dry, take them out and let them cool for a couple of hours.

How To Paint Handprint Salt-Dough Nativity Ornaments:

What You Will Need:

• Acrylic Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Paper plates
• Clear spray paint

1. Once the ornaments are cool you can paint them with acrylic paint.
2. Squirt some colors of paint on paper plates and give the children some paintbrushes.
3. The first two fingers can be Mary and Joseph and then the last two fingers and the thumbs some shepherds. Or any other way you want them, just remember, the wise men were not at the stable.
4. Paint the palm to look like straw and paint Baby Jesus on top of the straw.

Remember, they will not look perfect when they are being painted by young children!

5. Once they are painted let them dry (and do any touchup work you wish to do, you can almost always preserve their work while making it look a little more realistic)
6. After they are dry, string a ribbon through the hole in the top and tie it into a bow.
7. Coat the entire ornament with clear spray paint several times to help preserve the ornament. This is especially important if you live in a humid environment as the dough will turn wet again eventually.
8. Hang it up on your tree or around the house and don’t forget the reason we celebrate Christmas!

Ideas For What To Do With The Extra Dough:

With the extra dough, you can use cookie cutters and cut it into shapes and poke holes in the top to make some shaped ornaments.

You can also use them to make a nativity scene for your children to play with. This is what I did with my extra and the children love playing with them and moving the people all around. Sometimes the sheep end up in the manger instead of Baby Jesus, but someday they will get it right.

And again, they will not look perfect if your two-year-old helps you paint them. They wouldn’t have if I had painted them myself either so I don’t know why I even worry about it.