Salt Dough Rune Ornaments for Yule

Good Yule to you and yours.  My tiny Yule tree needed some help, so I decided to try something I haven't done since I was a kid and that's make salt dough ornaments.  I'm sure you've either made these or seen them all over the Internet in the form of bells, stars, candy canes and many other familiar shapes.  I wanted some that reflected my tradition, so I decorated mine with runes.  Below is my decorated tree with the rune ornaments and various crystals and other jewelry pieces.

There are many salt dough recipes online with various ratios of salt to flour.  Here is what I used:

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1/4 cup water

I mixed this together to form a dough and then kneaded it for several minutes.  I rolled it to a little over 1/4 inch thick.  I used a 2.5 inch cookie cutter to cut the shapes and then a straw to make the wholes to be able to string ribbon through. I then baked them for almost 3 hours at 250 degrees Fahrenheit on an ungreased cookie sheet.

I was able to get 16 ornaments with this recipe, not the full set of 24 runes.  If I were to do this again, I would roll the dough to about 1/8 inch thick and I think I could get all 24.

I let these cool overnight and then painted them with antique white acrylic craft paint, two coats on the front and one on the back.  I then sketched the runes with a pencil on each ornament and then used a Prismacolor black marker to fill the shapes in.  You could also use craft paint if you prefer.  I let this dry for a few hours and then coated the front of the ornaments with Mod Podge sealant, again two coats on the front and one on the back.  You don't have to do the back, but I didn't want them to look unfinished on the tree.  

Salt dough was fun to make again after all these years.  This is a great way to make quick ornaments to personalize according to your tradition.  Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

p.s.  You might have caught the little crochet granny square ornaments.  Those are actually my Granny Square Earrings pattern found here.