Salt Dough Ornaments

Salt dough ornaments are such a fun and easy holiday craft! In fact, I’m making this a Christmas tradition in our house, because I want a tree full of 20 years worth of these homemade darlings. I’m NOT a crafty person, in fact, my husband calls my craft projects, “Arts and Craps.” I know – he’s adorable – but even I found these super easy to do and kids every age can help. Even better, I didn’t have to go to the store for anything – it’s just flour, water and salt.Making fun shapes with cookie cutters.

Ingredients

1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup lukewarm water

Directions

1. In a large bowl mix salt and flour.

2. Gradually stir in water. Mix well until it forms a doughy consistency.

3. With your hands form a ball with your dough and kneed it for at least 5 minutes. The longer you kneed your dough the smoother it will be.

Kids have a lot of fun with these.
Kids have a lot of fun with these.

Store your salt dough in a air tight container and you will be able to use it for days.

You can paint your creations with acrylic paints.

You can let your salt dough creations air dry, however, salt dough can also be dried in the oven. Bake at 200 F until your creation is dry. The amount of time needed to bake your creations depends on size and thickness; thin flat ornaments may only take 45-60 minutes, thicker creations can take 2-3 hours or more. You can increase your oven temperature to 350 F  so your dough will dry faster but it may also brown.  If you painted your ornament, that won’t matter. You can also cover your dough in the oven before it turns brown.

I also saw where you can color your dough with food coloring, or naturally with coffee, cocoa, or curry powder. Personally, I can’t wait to let my my little guy run free with a bottle of curry powder….

Let's all decorate!
Let’s all decorate!

I will say that this craft is a lot like making sugar cookies, so be warned!!  No matter how many times you say, “these aren’t cookies”, your two-year-old will not believe you. My advice is to have your camera ready in advance for the moment when they try to take a bite of rock hard salt and flour…ahh, Christmas memories.

Send us pictures of your salt dough ornament creations!

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Whitney Jackson
My name is Whitney and I'm married to my talented husband, Blake and we have two insanely wonderful kids, Violet (3) and Wyatt (2). I've been a stay at home mom for a little over a year, after making the decision to leave a world of spread sheets for a world of forts made out of sheets. I work part time as a day school teacher after realizing I actually love working with kids and I may even be good at it. I enjoy reading, taking family road trips, drinking copious amounts of coffee and hope to one day to be a professional thrift store shopper (only slightly kidding). I'm excited to be a part of this group, because raising kids is rough and everyone needs a village, even if a virtual one. I hope we're all able to discover new parts of our city, give and get advice from how to get your kids to stop eating chalk (me) to raising strong confident children and maybe even make some new friends.

1 COMMENT

  1. I tried these with my daughter. Surprisingly, the dough turned out great (I’ve done this before and it didn’t work out so well) so thanks for the good recipe. 🙂 Although, her ornaments turned out more like blobs, she still had a great time!! Thanks for this idea – it was a perfect afternoon activity.

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