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Are you looking for a frugal and easy way to make some lovely Christmas tree ornaments? Then do read on. This week we decided to make some salt dough Christmas decorations.
Salt Dough Christmas Decorations
I cannot believe that I have never tried to make salt dough! I’ve seen a lot of decorations made from salt dough before but never actually thought that it would be for me. Mainly because they looked like salt dough people or bread, and were a bit too rustic for my taste.
Last year we used air drying clay to make some small love heart decorations. We gave them to friends and family as small stocking fillers from E. And they went down so well that I wanted to try it again this year.
But
- air drying clay is quite expensive and
- it dries out very quickly when using it, so is a bit difficult when you have an almost 4 year old that just wants to play with it like play doh!
So when looking on Pinterest this week I was delighted to find this great method for making a dough that you can bake in the oven until it acts like a clay decoration. And I decided that I was going to have a go with my 4 year old.
You Will Need
- 2 cups of plain flour
- 1 cup of salt
- 1 cup of luke warm water
And that is it!
Making the Shapes
Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl, then gradually add the water until you get a dough like consistency. You can add food colouring or spices at this point, but I just left it the colour it was.
This dough will store and you can use it for a few days. But we rolled it quite thinly and used these brilliant cookie cutters to make some shapes with indents. We placed these carefully on a baking tray.
Baking the Shapes
You can let the shapes dry out naturally in a warm place, but we decided to bake ours on a low heat of 150 degrees Celsius for a couple of hours. Our thin shapes took all the two hours, but do bear in mind that thicker shapes may take longer.
Decorating the Ornaments
Once the shapes had cooled, I sprayed the shapes with white spray paint to even out the colour and give a good base for the decoration.
We then decorated the shapes using old glitter nail polishes. This is a brilliant way to use up old nail polish that isn’t useful for doing your nails with any more. E loved using all the different colours.
Finally, I sprayed a layer of clear varnish over each decoration.
Our Finished Salt Dough Christmas Decorations
I am really pleased with these, and E was proud of her achievements.
Hopefully the paints and varnish will preserve the salt dough Christmas decorations enough for them to be durable. I do know that if they aren’t preserved they do have a tendency to go soft, break or go mouldy. And I really do not want that to happen.
Our dough ornaments did swell a little bit and are a little bit hollow. And I do think that this will make them more liable to breaking unfortunately. But this is probably because I did let my little girl roll and re-roll the dough when we were cutting out the shapes. And when I let her cut the shapes they weren’t a uniform thickness. I am sure that this trapped air which expanded as they baked. Not ideal, but as these are her own creation I think that E has every right to be very proud of them!
If I were to make them on my own I would suggest rolling the dough just once to a uniform thickness. And then flouring the cutters each time before cutting.
Do you think you would like to make some salt dough Christmas decorations? I would love to see your creations. Tag me in your makes on social media or comment below.
Looking for other crafts for small children? See our
And please do pin this post for later.
These are so cute! I bet they would smell great if you added some cinnamon.
Yes, I plan on doing that next time, or adding some food colourant.
These look great and as you say so easy to make. I wish they dried a little quicker and then I could use them for crafts here with our guests. Did you know if you leave out the salt the flour mix makes a great clay glue for sticking Christmas decorations into. We did this using logs as a base for table decorations last year. #KCACOLS
We always used flour glue growing up. And yes, they do take SO long in the oven!
These look amazing! I’ve not done salt dough with my children for ages, I might have to put a batch together and make some of these! x #KCACOLS
So easy to do. A lovely thing to do with children.
This has reminded me so much of my childhood! We used to make salt dough decorations with my mum! Yours look so lovely! #KCACOLS
Thank you. I still cannot believe that I’d never made these before!
These are so beautiful Jo – you and E should be very proud of your work! I have never heard of salt dough before, it sounds so straightforward. My girls would absolutely love this – I am going to keep this idea and maybe we will get around to it in the next two weeks! Thanks for linking up to #KCACOLS and hope you come back again next time x
I couldn’t believe I’d never tried it either Tracey. SO easy! I hope you get a chance to try it out too!
These are very sweet – my kids would definitely enjoy making these #KCACOLS
I’m actually going to give these a go this year! A lovely little activity to do with the little ones. Thank you so much for linking up with #kcacols and we hope to see you next time!