How to Make Salt Dough Ornaments for Christmas

I have been wanting to try these Salt Dough Ornaments for a while now. I love the way they look and the possibilities of what you can do with them are endless! Today I am sharing exactly how I created my salt dough ornaments for my Christmas tree!

Three in progress photos on how to make salt dough ornaments.

This is a great ornament craft to do with kids. It’s cheap, you likely have all the ingredients in your cupboards, and the kids will love decorating these fun ornaments.

*This post contains affiliate links. For more details see my full disclosure.

Table of Contents

How to Make Salt Dough Ornaments

The key to making these ornaments is the rolling pin I purchased from Amazon. It has a patterned texture to it that adds so much interest to these ornaments.

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There are several recipes out there to make these ornaments but here is the one I chose to use.

Recipe

2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Mix the flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl. Add the water a little at a time until it’s fully incorporated. You want the dough to be tacky but not sticky. Add more flour if it’s too sticky, add more water if it’s too dry.

Roll the dough out as you would sugar cookies. Then using the textured rolling pin roll over the dough pressing pretty hard to make the pattern in the dough.

The salt dough rolled out on the counter.

The salt dough after rolling with my textured rolling pin.

Once you are happy with the dough and the pattern use a cookie cutter to cut out the shape you want. Here is where you can do whatever you want. I wanted round ornaments and I don’t have a round cookie cutter so I just used a glass to cut out a round shape.

Using a glass to cut out circles in my salt dough to make ornaments.

Use a straw to punch out a hole where the ribbon will go to hang it on the tree.

Using a straw to puncture a hole in the ornament for hanging.

Drying out your salt dough ornaments

There are two ways you can dry out your salt dough ornaments, air dry or in the oven. I tried both methods.

For the air-dry method put your ornaments on a drying rack and let them dry for a couple of days.

If you are in more of a hurry put your ornaments on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 1/2 – 2 hours in the oven at 225 degrees.

Other than the time involved in drying the only difference I noticed in the ornaments is the final color. The air-dried ornaments are whiter than the ones I put in the oven.

I wonder if that has something to do with the fact that I baked them on my Pampered Chef stone? That might have contributed to the light beige color they took on. I am not sure. I thought I would mention it though just in case that makes a difference to you.

Finished Salt Dough Ornaments

Here are the finished ornaments and I am absolutely in love with them! I love the texture they have from the rolling pin.

The finished salt dough ornament with a red ribbon hanging on a Christmas tree.

Another finished salt dough ornament hanging on a Christmas tree with a red ribbon.

Salt dough ornament hanging on a Christmas tree with a red ribbon.

A salt dough ornament hanging on a Christmas tree with a red ribbon.

I hope you love the ornaments as much as I do! They took so little time to make and with patience can be decorated any way you want!

I have seen people use shaped cookie cutters and some have even painted the ornaments. This is a great idea for a kid’s craft!

Other Christmas Crafts:

How to make salt dough ornaments pin for Pinterest.

Wendy Duffy

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As a licensed Real Estate Agent and an avid home decorator, I strive to give my clients the very best I can when it comes to staging, selling, and decorating their homes. I have lots of experience with paint color choices and love to DIY my home so I can have everything just the way I want it. I share my ideas and projects with the world in the hopes that I can help others have their homes just the way they want as well.