heart cookie decorations

Just recently, I planned a fun little playdate get together with my friend and her daughter. On our agenda were these sweet heart-shaped cookie decorations! What girl wouldn’t want to make cute little hearts as little keepsake treasures that look good enough to eat ? Yeah, I thought so. Enjoy a look at the snap shots from our day that take you through the tutorial as well…. Enjoy.This is really fun to make with little toddlers, just make sure they understand that these are decorations and are not meant to be eaten. Also we used little jewellery beads for decorating, skip that if your little one is too young for these. A great idea is to have some real cookies on hand to satisfy their little cookie craving – which will for sure happen looking at these ;)

Simple salt dough recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of fine salt
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of water (may add more)

Instructions:

• In a large bowl, combine the salt and the flour
• Make a well in the salt/flour mixture and add the water
• Knead until smooth and shape into a ball
• When not in use, wrap in plastic or store in an airtight container

HINT: To get a softer dough you can add more flour. Adding more salt will lend a more granulous affect. Use wallpaper glue and the dough with be more cohesive. To add color to your dough, use different types of flour or add food coloring or paint. Knead to get an even color. (we prefer not to as the food colouring will dirty the kids hands.  I think it’s better to paint your ornaments and after they dry.

BAKING: Bake at 200 degrees F for about 30 minutes. Leave flat over night to cool and dry completely.

Roll out your salt dough as you would with a regular dough. Now using your favourite cookie cutters, heart shaped – of course – it is a Valentine’s Day craft after all ;)  Cut out your shapes as you would with cookies. Check out the fun part:

We used some costume jewellery (on the very cheap side – dollar store jewellery would work great), although you will be able to clean the dough off – I don’t want any upset mamas cursing my name when they try to wear their favourite piece and there’s the remnants of out cookie craft right there on their neckline). Some pretty textured brooches or bracelets and necklaces work so well. We practiced on some of the dough and found the best textures we liked. Our favourites were a pretty little lace pattern and a beautiful butterfly print .

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As you know, butterflies hold a special place in my heart so this was getting really special…

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We used little jewellery beads to decorate them. The little girls liked personalizing their decorations with these. Then you bake them according to the directions on top. Bake longer for a natural ‘baked look’ and less for a flat white look.

There are several things you can do with these. With a hole in the top, you can hang them off some branches, like we did on the photos below or the first photo of this post.

These also make beautiful treasures left as is or you can paint them and give as little gifts. We will do that for a few aunts and for the grandmas. For this project, we really let the 3 and 4 year old to take over – so they’re not ‘designer perfect’ – a little misshapen with little dents and finger or nail markings, and the beads were stuck down with no rules….. but I have not ever seen prettier ‘perfect’ hearts. My daughter enjoyed this ‘hands on’ craft so much and she’s letting me learn so much from this process. To let go of the ‘perfect’ sometimes and just enjoy and follow the heart…

There is more craft projects that you could use these on which I will show you tomorrow (click here). So check out how I personalized a chalkboard panel and made some magnets with these heart-shaped cookie decorations.

Are you making any Valentine’s Day crafts with your kids?