Craft a Salt Clay Angel from A Mold

The above Brown Bag Mold was copyrighted in 1986 by Hill Design.

       I crafted the molded angel ornament above from salt dough. The mold was produced by "Brown Bag Cookie Art" in 1986 (Angel With Lute) This company is still producing a line of stoneware molds every year I think. Here is their online address. You can also collect Brown Bag Molds online at Ebay so it helps to know the name of the mold you are looking for at least.

       You can find the salt clay recipe that I use personally at my arteducationdaily.blog if you'd prefer to try it. There are many salt clay formulas that students can use for a Christmas ornament craft projects that will produce lovely results. I also could have used paper clay in this mold and my angel would have been lighter weight. However, paper clay is significantly more expensive than salt clay. If you use salt clay, you do need to spray the mold with cooking spray before pressing the salt clay into the mold. You must then immediately remove the molded ornament before baking it at 250 degrees for two hours. I tap the edge of my mold gently on a wooden chopping board in order to un-mold the raw salt clay. This takes a bit of practice but the results are well worth it.

       After painting my angel with acrylic paints, I then applied a generous coat of gold translucent nail enamel for the finished appearance. You do not always need to use clear varnish on your salt dough ornaments. Experiment a little, try variations and layers of enamel that you ordinarily would not try on a few test pieces before varnishing your final molded ornament!

"Emily Warford Ivey shows us how to personalize our tree with simple 

and inexpensive homemade ornaments." Amanda Warford