Salt Dough Fingerprint Christmas Trees

There is a lot of pressure around Christmas and making sure you get the people you love the most, gifts that they will appreciate and be over the moon with. Shopping is stressful with little ones at the best of times let alone out in the Christmas hussle and bussle! Money can be tight so many of us look at ways we can save money and still put big smiles on our loved ones faces!

Well for a grand total of £2.68 for a batch of around 10 gifts (!!!!!) I am going to share with you today a delightful Fingerprint Keepsake, that you can give to your nearest and dearest that will tick all the boxes.

Who doesn't LOVE a keepsake? No matter what time of year they are treasured for years and years to come! My Mom still gets out some of the things I made when I was in Nursery - a whopping 21 years ago!

You will need:

Salt
Plain Flour
Water
Christmas Tree Cutter
Straw
Ribbon/String
Acrylic Paints
Marker Pen
Rolling Pin


You will need to make a batch of Salt Dough, incredibly easy to make! You can find our simple recipe and 'how to' guide here. You can also print it out for future reference.

Once you have your Salt Dough made, roll it out using your rolling pin and use your cutter to create your Christmas Tree shapes.

Use the straw to put holes into the top so you can add string/ribbon for hanging.

You can either add indented fingerprints at this stage and paint over the top of them once they have dried or you can dry them out first and after painting the Christmas Trees green (or whatever colour you wish) print on the fingerprints ontop of your base colour.

I opted to print using the paints rather than making indents. No particular reason other than my toddler wasn't up for doing the inprints when I made the dough as she was busy doing something else.

It really is trial and error getting the salt dough to dry out. It depends on how thick the dough is and how large the shapes are.

I usually pop in the oven for around an hour before letting them air dry for a couple of days and then adding them back to the oven if they are still not fully dry. Even when I believe them to be fully dry I still give them an extra day or two to make sure.


Paint your salt dough with acrylic pants. Don't be tempted to use childrens paints (as I did when I first created salt dough). Water based paints will add water back into the dough and it will return back to the doughy consistency you started with.


Add your fingerprints and draw the wires linking up the fingerprints to create colourful Christmas Tree lights.


Coat the whole Christmas Tree with varnish. This will seal your creation and preserve. Finish off by adding string/ribbon and of course a lovely glittery star. We used the foam star shapes for our stars.

You can give them as they are or wrap them.



I am terrible when it comes to cute ribbons and wrapping. I purchased a pack of cellophane bags that I places the Christmas Trees inside. I added some ribbon for the finishing touch and made some cute little tags. It gave a lovely finishing touch.

I get so excited when the Christmas decorations start going up and everything turns festive. I have always brought close family and friends little gifts on the day they decide to put their Christmas Trees up and write on the tags 'Happy Decorating Day'. This year I have all of these delightful gifts from my Toddle awaiting their decorating days!

So this week why not add the few ingredients you need to your shopping list and get making your very own super cute light fingerprint Christmas Trees?

We have some more Salt Dough creations coming very soon so be sure to check back!