It is really starting to feel like the holiday season around here! We have officially started Christmas School (and the kids are LOVING it), the Christmas decorations are out, and we completed our first Christmas tradition of the year: making salt dough ornaments together!
I can’t even tell you the number of times we have made salt dough ornaments. They are just so easy! I have had really good luck with them standing up to the test of time, too. I simply wrap them in paper towel and tuck them into the Christmas ornament box.
Before we get into how to make the salt dough ornaments, be sure to grab your FREE sample topic from Christmas School! This one is all about reindeer and includes some beautiful watercolor vocabulary cards as well. Grab yours right here:
And if you enjoy it—which I know you will!—you can get the full version right here: https://shop.howweelearn.com/products/christmas-school
Now let’s get into the some salt dough ornaments!
How to Make Salt Dough Ornaments
I use a very simple salt dough recipe:
- 1 cup of salt
- 1 cup of water
- 2 cups of flour
It makes a nice big batch of salt dough, perfect for all 3 of my little ones to get crafty with. Mix all the ingredients in a big bowl, knead it until it’s smooth, then you’re ready to roll it out and make some ornaments!
This year, we had tons and tons of whole cloves left over from a different crafting project, so I thought we could cut out some gingerbread men and decorate them with the cloves. If nothing else, I knew they would smell heavenly.
The Christmas ornaments were a big hit with all of my kids (which is not often, given the 10 year age span), and they turned out super cute!
The cloves were nice and easy to poke into the salt dough gingerbread men, and it smelled lovely as we worked, too.
We then baked them in a 300-degree oven for all eternity (or about 3 hours), which made the entire house smell divine.
We headed outside for a while, and when we came inside, the boys were terribly disappointed to know that the lovely smell was the Christmas ornaments and not Christmas cookies. (Seriously though, boys, who would have made the cookies? We were all outside… details, I suppose.)
The ornaments worked perfectly and will look beautiful on our tree for years to come.
I hope you enjoyed making salt dough ornaments with your little ones! If you want even more fun, hands-on activities to learn and make memories together this holiday season, I invite you to check out Christmas School.
Get in the holly jolly spirit and join us!
https://shop.howweelearn.com/products/christmas-school
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Thank you so very much for reading!
xo
Sarah
This is one of my favorite Christmas crafts! So many childhood memories making these with my cousins.
We love salt dough ornaments too – so happy to be able to remind you of happy memories!
I recently got a new (to me) book called Tough Cookie by Edward Hemingway – the main character thinks he is a sweet sugar cookie man, but it turns out he is a salt ornament. Such a neat book, and would be a lovely tie in if you are making these ornaments with your class (or even for home!).