Easter Tree Salt Dough Ornaments

With Sidney's birthday in March and Ava's in April, I'm usually too burned out to decorate for Easter.  But the girls insist that there be some decorative acknowledgment that Easter is coming.  They love to party.

My bare minimum decorations seem to satisfy their needs.

There's this:

And this:

Mixed with a few leftover birthday party decorations, this should be enough, right?

During one of the many thunderstorms that we had recently, I caved and did an Easter craft with the girls.

The girls really liked making salt dough ornaments at Christmas so I dug through my cookie cutters and found some Easter-y ones we could use.

I didn't have an oval cookie cutter.  So instead I used the round plastic cup that measures out laundry detergent and squeezed it into an oval shape to make Easter eggs.

Here's what you need to make Easter ornaments:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup table salt
7 Tbsp water
Parchment paper
Cookie cutters
Rolling pin
Drinking straw
Paint
Twine or ribbon

Yield: ~20 ornaments

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Mix together flour, salt and water and knead with your hands until combined, about 2 minutes.
3. Roll out the dough on parchment paper to ~ 1/4 inch thick and press cookie cutters into dough.
4. Use a drinking straw to poke holes in the ornaments (this is where the twine or ribbon will go).

5. Place the ornaments on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 25 - 30 minutes, until golden.

6. Wait for the ornaments to cool and then paint as desired.  We painted both sides of the ornaments using outdoor paint or washable glitter paint.

7.  The outdoor paint coated the ornaments better (see pink egg below right) but the girls love their glitter paint and didn't seem to mind how it turned out (see green glitter cross below left).

7. When dry, thread twine or ribbon through the hole and hang on your Easter tree. 

The girls' Easter trees have not moved from their spots at the kitchen table (where Clara cannot reach them!).  They are so proud of their Easter decorations!
PS - If you need a good Easter treat, try these:

YUM!!