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Learn how to make a simple salt dough star garland, perfect for a kid-friendly crafting session and makes a beautiful homemade decoration!
Looking for a fun craft that turns simple kitchen ingredients into magical decor? A salt dough star garland is the perfect project for kids to dive into – mixing, shaping, and painting their own sparkly stars to create a beautiful, homemade decoration.
We love making salt dough ornaments each year for the Christmas tree, and to give as gifts. But what makes this garland special is that it can be hung up all year long, a string of sweet stars hanging in a child’s room, across the mantel, or around the tree.
And make sure you print out our favorite salt dough recipe to use!
How to Make a Salt Dough Star Garland
MATERIALS:
- Salt Dough (see recipe below)
- Small star cookie cutter (or other small shape)
- Parchment paper
- Toothpicks
- Cookie sheet
- Twine or string
INSTRUCTIONS
- Make your salt dough
Follow the recipe below to make a batch of salt dough. Lay parchment paper down for your dough. The parchment paper helps to keep the dough from sticking to the table.
Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough and cut out stars with the cookie cutter.
- Transfer to cookie sheet
Carefully transfer your stars to a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.
- Add holes for twine
Using a toothpick or similar tool, make two holes in the center of each star. Make sure they are big enough for twine and go all the way through to the cookie sheet. We found that after baking, the holes shrank a little, so err on the side of big!
- Bake!
Bake your stars in a 250F oven for 2-3 hours or until the salt dough is hard, but not browned. Let cool completely.
- Make your garland
Carefully thread the twine through the two holes in each star to create your garland. Once it is long enough, find a special spot to hang it up!
Before you string your garland, feel free to decorate your stars. You can paint them with a variety of different paints or paint a coat of white glue on and sprinkle glitter for some extra sparkly stars!
How sweet does this garland look? We think it’ll be up all year long!
Our Favorite Salt Dough Recipe
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Our Favorite Salt Dough Recipe
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 hours
- Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Category: crafts
- Cuisine: n/a
Description
We’ve tried so many salt dough crafts and made lots of variations of salt dough ornaments over the years. Here’s our favorite salt dough recipe with instructions to get you started.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 1 cup salt
- 1 cup cold water (+ extra if needed)
Instructions
- Mix flour with salt then stir in water. If the dough doesn’t come together, add a bit more water.
- Turn out the salt dough onto a countertop and work together with your hands until evenly mixed.
- Store in a plastic bag in the fridge until ready to use.
- Place a fist-size piece of dough on a sheet of parchment paper and cover with a second sheet of parchment paper. Roll dough out with a rolling pin 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick.
- Use cookie cutters to cut out the desired shapes. Pull away the extra dough from around the shapes with the cookie cutters still in place.
- Use the end of a drinking straw, a skewer, or a chopstick to poke a hole at the top of each ornament for hanging.
- If you plan to decorate the ornaments, do that step now. Try stamps and a stamp pad, poking a pattern of holes in the dough with the end of a straw, or poking glass beads into the dough.
- Gently move the sheet of parchment paper with salt dough ornaments onto a cookie sheet and bake in a 250F oven for 2-3 hours or until the salt dough is hard, but not browned. Let cool.
- (Optional) Add a coat of Mod Podge or some paint (we like BioColor paint for these) and glitter.
- Add a ribbon through the hole and hang in the window or on the tree!
More Garlands and Ornaments for Kids
- How to Make a Dried Orange Garland
- How to Make a Christmas Garland
- 20 Homemade Christmas Ornaments the Whole Family Can Make
- 10 Salt Dough Ornaments for Kids
- 5 Natural Christmas Decorations for Kids
- How to Make Cinnamon Ornaments
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