So, it’s Wednesday evening.  My darling husband is out at his 2nd christmas do and I’m home alone with the littl’uns asleep.  I decide to watch ‘Kirsties Homemade Christmas’  which I’d Sky +’d from Tuesday.  I didn’t watch any of the original series (not sure why) but having seen last nights programme, I’m disappointed that I didn’t.

If you’ve been reading my previous blog posts you’ll know that I’ve been doing a lot of homemade bits and pieces for Christmas.  So when I saw Kirsty making salt-dough decorations I switched off the telly and decided to give it a go myself!  At that stage, the detail wasn’t online, but it’s very straightforward to make:

• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup water
• 2 cups flour

I just bunged it all into my kitchenaid mixer and let it work for about 5 minutes, then got to work and started rolling the dough out.  I found that I had to add extra flour as my dough was too sticky – it definitely got easier to work with as I went on, mainly because I’d added more flour to the worksurface for rolling out.

I tried cutting stars but they were too tricky (again probably because my mixture was a little on the wet side) but had a lot more success with heart shapes.  Once I had them cut out, I nuked them in the microwave for about 3 minutes per plate, which was enough to dry some of them out but not others – the last batch went in the oven this morning at 180c for 15 mins.

Once cooled, I sprayed both sides with gold spray paint which I just happened to have to hand (randomly).  I then threaded red bias binding material through, but you could use ribbon instead?

I thought about creating a garland, but wasn’t sure what I would actually attach it to, so decided on creating a centerpiece over our table instead.  I’m chuffed with the result – they definitely look homemade but isn’t that the point?   Would love to hear what you think.