Hello, I'm Louise from 'Messy Little Monster' and I am really excited to have been invited by Amanda to share one of our Christmas salt dough crafts with you. I have two children, Harry who is 3 and Daisy, who is 4 months old. We love craft activities, sensory play, and getting messy! I also absolutely LOVE hand and footprint art and being able to capture my kids tiny little prints. Please do pop on by to see all the crafty and messy things we get up to.
We love using salt dough to make little keepsakes and we have been busy this week using it to make Christmas Ornaments. We have been making reindeer footprints and salt dough Santas. I am here to share our reindeer footprint ornaments which look so cute hanging on the Christmas tree and make perfect Christmas keepsakes. I especially Love Daisy's footprints as they are so tiny!
How to make the Reindeer Footprint Ornaments
We made salt dough (using this basic recipe) and added cinnamon to turn the salt dough a lovely shade of brown. I made an egg shape out of the salt dough and flattened it ready for Harry and Daisy to press their feet into. Once I was happy with their footprints, I cut around them with a sharp knife.
I pushed a paper clip into the top of each footprint for the ribbon to go through and then I put the ornaments in the oven. I left them in the oven for a couple of hours at a low temperature and then left them overnight to make sure they were completely dried out.
Once they were dry, I varnished the salt dough and added googly eyes, a pom pom nose, and pipe cleaner antlers using a glue gun. I glued the antlers to the back of the footprint and added the children names and ages.
To make each pair of antlers:
Cut one pipe cleaner in half and another into 4 pieces. Twist the shorter pipe cleaner pieces around the longer ones.
I threaded some ribbon through the paper clips and our adorable little reindeer were ready for hanging. I was really pleased with them and I think they make gorgeous little keepsakes.
Have you made any hand or footprint keepsakes or paintings this Christmas? You might be interested in our santa ornaments, robin footprints or our fingerprint gift tags!
Gude @HodgePodgeCraft says
This is such a cute thing to do with little ones and something to cherish in the future when you wonder how their feet were ever that small..! 😉
#Pintorials
Teresia Spangler says
Love all your wonderful ideas ,thanks.
Amanda says
Thank you for your kind comment 🙂
Jill says
How much cinnamon did you use in the dough to make the footprints brown? I used a ton until the dough looked good and brown, but when it dried out the top side where the prints actually are look white now. Does modpodge or varnish help the color to return? I am not sure if I need to paint them first now or not.
natalia says
Great idea!
Mia says
These are amazing! I can't wait to make them for the grandparents - it's our baby's first Christmas :). Did you stick the whole paper clip into the top? Also, what did you use to varnish the reindeer? Thanks for this awesome tutorial!
Nicole says
Dog owners be careful with these and put them higher up on the tree! They are an adorably great idea, but I just came across a local news story earlier this week about a family who did this for baby's first Christmas and the dog ate this salt dough ornament off of the tree and died! Apparently they are very fatal for dogs...