Conversation Heart Ornaments

Nothing says Valentine’s Day to me like conversation hearts. I remember sorting through them and reading each one. Where I work they have a Christmas tree that they leave up year round and they are always looking for new ornaments to decorate it, so I decide to make some conversation heart ornaments using basic salt dough.

Basic Salt Dough Recipe:

1 c. salt

2 c. flour

3/4 – 1 c. warm water

Mix salt, flour, and water together until a large ball forms. Knead on a lightly floured surface. The better you knead the dough the nicer the dough. Roll out 1/4” – 1/2” thick and cut shapes with cookie cutters. Place on parchment covered baking sheet and bake 3 – 4 hours at 200 F. I have a collection of different alphabet stamps and I used a set of those to make the words. Make sure to really press the stamp into the dough, I found that it was hard to get a good letter impression without printing the edge of my stamps too. If you look closely you can see the imprints on the hearts on the right hand side.

The salt dough dries really well in the oven and the final texture really reminds me of the real conversation hearts. Once they were dry I painted them. I think that if I made them again I would tint the dough and then I would just have to paint the letter, plus they would have been a softer pastel color like the real hearts. I need to seal these really well to preserve them and then string them on ribbon and they’ll be ready for the tree. These would also be cute with a hole on each side and hung as a banner. This was a really fun, simple project that I think I will revisit again, maybe next year we’ll make monogram ornaments for all the teachers.