DIY Cornstarch Ornaments as Name Place Cards

I love the idea of salt dough for ornaments and hand print crafts but have found that its a little more porous and not quite as smooth, so I decided to try this recipe for cornstarch dough when making these ornaments. I made these ornaments as place cards for my work Christmas Party. These ornaments are inexpensive to make so its cost effective when making quite a few and can be painted and decorated anyway that fits your decor with any personalization you want. They also make great little take home gifts.

Cornstarch Dough Recipe (from Tips from a Typical Mom):

1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup baking soda
3/4 cup water
optional: food coloring (if you want to make colored dough, add the food coloring to the water before you mix it in.)

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat on medium, stirring frequently until thickened like mash potatoes. Place in a bowl with a wet paper towel until dough cools. Then knead until smooth. At this point you can roll out with some cornstarch to keep from sticking on your surfaces and use any desired cookie cutters to create desired shape, I used this deer head cookie cutter that I bought on Amazon. A straw to make a hole is perfect for hanging ribbon for ornaments. This dough is delicate like a fine clay so I recommend going a little thicker on your pieces and being careful as they are still fragile. Place your cut pieces on a tray with parchment paper then either let air dry in a warm place overnight or bake at 175 degrees for about 30min-1hr depending on the thickness and flipping over from the front to the back of the piece carefully halfway through. Be careful not to let the ornaments over bake you don’t want them golden like cookies and stay their pretty white. I used an old nail fie to gently remove any little rough edges or pieces from cutting with the cookie cutter, then paint and decorate as you please. I kept mine simple using a black and red sharpie to write everyone’s names, the year and a little red Rudolph nose. Stay tuned for my next post in how I use these as table name placecards and decorate the table with a deer theme in gold and neutral colors.

-Ashley