Updated December 2020
We have a great new way to decorate salt dough ornaments!
Big surprise, right? We always seem to be tweaking and experimenting with materials and techniques. This time, I decided to try combining two all-time favorites, melted crayon art and salt dough, thinking they might mix well.
And they do!
You can find the basic salt dough recipe and instructions on this post of 11 Salt Dough Crafts Kids Can Make. Plus it has a ton of other great salt dough ideas!
Salt Dough Ornaments for Kids
MATERIALS
- Salt dough ornaments
- Crayons (we also used a set of multicultural crayons)
- Washcloth (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
- Make salt dough ornaments
See my recipe for how to make the ornaments.
- Decorate with crayons!
At the end of the salt dough ornament baking period, take one ornament at a time out of the oven (per person) and draw on it with crayons.
Just as with melted crayon rocks and other melted crayon art, the crayons melt as they glide over the hot surface, leaving a thick and shiny waxy coating of vibrant color.
- Let Cool
Allow your ornaments to cool and dry before hanging them up.
The animal cookie cutters are a fun set I picked up at Ikea a while back.
Besides all the animals, we also decorated some snowflake ornaments with the melted crayon technique.
Some Helpful Tips
On Daphne’s ornaments, there ended up being a mix of melted crayon and not-quite melted crayon.
She worked a bit slower than the other two, and once the ornaments cool down, the crayon doesn’t melt as readily. You can put the partially finished ornament back into the oven to reheat, but she turned down that idea and was perfectly content to continue drawing on the ornaments as they were.
I decorated some myself, and especially liked how the metallic crayons melted and looked.
Note: We placed our ornaments on a washcloth to protect the table from the heat and the crayons. The salt dough wasn’t actually that hot (not like the rocks) and we could touch them with our bare hands. The washcloths probably weren’t necessary; a paper plate or a placemat might be plenty—anything you don’t mind getting crayon on.
We finally have our Christmas tree up and were able to hang all of our new ornaments (along with quite a few from years past).
More Salt Dough Ornaments for Kids:
- How to Make Salt Dough Ornaments with Sparkly Glass Beads
- Two Beautiful Ways to Make Christmas Salt Dough Ornaments
- How to Make Stamped Salt Dough Ornaments for Christmas
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12 Comments
D
December 16, 2013 at 1:06 pmQuestion on baking time: so you bake these for 2 hours and then decorate with crayon? I’ve never made the salt dough, but was just looking at your recipe. Great idea!
Kelli
December 16, 2013 at 3:34 pmThis is a really great idea. Just make sure that if you store your Christmas decor in the attic and you live in a place that gets hot (like I do) that you store these ornaments separately from your others (better yet keep them cool inside) or you could ruin the rest of your precious keepsakes!
Jean Van't Hul
December 16, 2013 at 2:07 pmYep! That’s about it! It’s really quite easy!
sherena
December 12, 2014 at 7:46 amCan I use food color? If so do I mix it in with the dough?
Jean Van't Hul
December 12, 2014 at 8:08 amYes, Sherena. You can dye the salt dough with food coloring before you shape and cook it. Check out this rainbow salt dough on The Imagination Tree! https://theimaginationtree.com/2014/03/rainbow-glitter-salt-dough-recipe.html
Dena
December 17, 2013 at 1:23 pmYou have just made my day; the melted crayon rocks were the biggest hit with all the kids so this is right on for us! Thanks so much!
Fiona Wood
December 17, 2013 at 4:22 pmOhh I love this idea. We love salt dough and have made quite a few Christmas decorations with it in the past few years. I just completed three art classes using salt dough for decorations. I’ve found that you can paint them with liquid watercolours (straight from the bottle not watered down) and sprinkle with glitter before baking. That means they are all done in one sitting and I can give them back the following week. The liquid watercolours come out really bright.
Love your experimentation – keep up the good work and have a lovely Christmas!!
Cheers
Fiona Wood
katie
December 18, 2013 at 8:58 pmFabulous! We kicked out the teacher gifts this afternoon with this project!
Tiffany
December 21, 2013 at 6:35 amSuch a great idea! Just curious, when do you usually find time to sit and do art with your children in your day? I figure once they start school our art time will be few and far between.
nina
November 14, 2014 at 1:35 pmHow do u make them the salt and dough cit outs
Beth
November 22, 2014 at 12:46 amDirections??
Erin
December 6, 2018 at 10:16 pmThis was a lot of fun! I found myself taking over because I wanted to colr the ornaments!