11 Salt Dough Ornaments Kids Can Make

Making salt dough ornaments and salt dough gifts is a holiday tradition in our family as well as many others.

As we get close to the holidays and holiday crafting season, I thought I’d put together a post full of fun salt dough ornaments kids can make to inspire your family (and mine!).

Enjoy!

P.S. If you’re wondering how to make salt dough ornaments, I’ll include my favorite salt dough recipe and the basic instructions at the end of this post so once you get inspired by all these ideas you can get started creating with salt dough! Most of these posts I’m linking to have salt dough recipes and instructions as well…

11 Salt Dough Ornaments Kids Can Make

5 from The Artful Parent, 6 from other awesome sites…

1. Lacy Salt Dough Ornaments

2. Melted Crayon Salt Dough Ornaments

3. Beaded Salt Dough Ornaments

4. Stamped Salt Dough Ornaments

5. Basic Salt Dough Ornaments with Paint and Glitter

6. No Cook Cinnamon Ornaments (On Growing a Jeweled Rose)

7. Faux Silver Hearts (on Smile Monsters)

8. Marbled Salt Dough Ornaments (on I Heart Naptime – photo above from Two-Daloo)

9. Melted Bead Salt Dough Suncatcher Ornaments (on Homegrown Friends)

10. Rainbow Glitter Salt Dough (on The Imagination Tree)

11. DIY Handprint Ornament (on You’re So Martha)

6 More Fun Things to Make with Salt Dough

1. Make Salt Dough JOY Letters (on Nurture Store)

2. Stamped Salt Dough Gift Tags (on Design Editor)

3. Make Custom Cookie Stamps with Salt Dough (on Alpha Mom)

4. Salt Dough Heart Magnets (on Tinkerlab)

5. Give a Hug :: Salt Dough Letter Magnets for the Fridge (on Red Ted Art)

6. Make a Salt Dough Snowman (on Dollar Store Crafts)

BASIC SALT DOUGH RECIPE & INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix 4 cups flour with 1 cup salt. Stir in 1 1/2 cups cold water. If the dough doesn’t come together, add another 1/4 cup of water or so.
2. Store in a plastic bag in the fridge until ready to use.
3. Place a fist-size piece of dough on a sheet of parchment paper and cover with a second sheet of parchment paper. Roll out with a rolling pin to an 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick.
4. Use cookie cutters to cut out desired shapes. With cookie cutters still in place (ideal) or after you take them out, pull away the extra dough from around the shapes, leaving the shapes in place on the parchment paper.
5. Use the end of a drinking straw to poke a hole at the top of each ornament (for hanging).
6. Decorate the ornaments (optional) with a.) stamps and a stamp pad, b.) poking a pattern of holes in the dough with the end of a straw, c.) poking glass beads into the dough.
7. Gently move the sheet of parchment paper with salt dough ornaments onto a cookie sheet at bake in a 275F oven for 2-3 hours or until the salt dough is hard, but not browned. Let cool.
8. (Optional) Add a coat of Mod Podge or some paint (we like BioColor paint for these) and glitter.
9. Add a ribbon through the hole and hang in the window or on the tree!