Holiday Salt Dough Ornaments

Do you remember making salt dough ornaments when you were young? I do. This was the first year I tried it with my daughters. I was so glad I did! My girls range in age from 9 down to 1 1/2 and they all had a great time and stayed occupied for hours. The littlest one got put in her high chair and we just kept giving her little pieces of dough and tiny little cookie cutters and she was happy as a clam. She was done before the rest of them, probably lasting only about 35 minutes or so. I timed it so that we started during her nap, so by the time she had napped and played with the salt dough for a while it was time to get it cleaned up anyway. I found the recipe on Instagram @axeandroothomestead. She used 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, and 1 cup water. I thought about doubling the recipe at first, but in the end we made quite a few ornaments. We added 10 or 15 drops of cinnamon bark essential oil to ours because I love the smell of cinnamon. You could do this with any oil you like, cinnamon just is so festive and seemed just right. Scroll to see some pictures of the process, and at the bottom of this post you will find some affiliate links for the equipment we used to make the ornaments. These will make good gifts for our friends and extended family. Also this craft is sustainable and super inexpensive, especially if you have all of the equipment. We used some sheer tempera paint with glitter in it that someone had given us (we try to stay away from purchasing glitter these days because it is a micro plastic) but you can add a few drops of food coloring to your dough or paint them with acrylic paints. You can add water to acrylic paints to make them a little more sheer if you like that look.

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 cup cold water

10-15 drops of your favorite scented essential oil

Mix flour and salt together and then add water, slowly, a little at a time. We started mixing with a spoon and ended up finishing with our (floured) hands. Roll out dough onto a floured surface, we rolled ours out fairly thin. We also put flour on the rolling pin to keep the dough from sticking to it.

We used a toothpick to make holes for the strings. You can’t just poke it through though, you sort of have to wiggle it in a circle to create a slighly larger hole than the toothpick would make on it’s own.

Put them on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees for about an hour and a half, longer if your ornaments are thick. We made almost 3 trays full from this recipe. I put a bowl of water in the oven while these were baking to ensure they didn’t crack.

Paint them, let them dry, and add strings. So easy and fun!

Here are some things you may need if you don’t already have them on hand: