I wanted to do a quick DIY project this weekend and I thought creating these old salt dough ornaments would be so fun and festive! I haven’t made these since like elementary school so it was a lot of fun to do again.
This is so simple and easy to do and only requires a handful of ingredients. Most of them you probably already have in your home already too, which is a huge plus!
This was more of an experiment for me too because I wanted to test out my liquid spices I have from Spray Gourmet. I wanted to see how well they would work in this recipe.
I have actually used them to cook before and they taste great so I just wanted to see how the salt dough ornaments would turn out if I used them instead of the actual ground spices.
Spoiler alert- they turned out amazing!
This post contains affiliate links. Click here to read my disclosure policy.
Materials Needed:
- All Purpose Flour (2 cups)
- Salt (1 cup)
- Water (3/4 cup- 1 cup)
- Spray Gourmet Cinnamon Liquid Spice (2 tsp. You can use ground cinnamon instead too)
- Spray Gourmet Ginger Liquid Spice (2 tsp. You can also use ground ginger as well)
- Nutmeg (2 tsp)
- Cloves (2 tsp)
- Citrus Fresh Essential Oil (10 drops)
How To Make the Salt Dough Ornaments:
The first thing you need to do is mix together your flour, salt, citrus fresh drops, and all the spices. Then, you need to slowly add in your water.
Don’t mix it all in at once because you don’t want your consistency to be too sticky.
After it is all mixed together, knead it into a ball on a lightly floured surface. Roll it out with a rolling pin to about 1/4 inch thickness.
Then, using cookie cutters, cut out your ornament shapes!
Place the ornaments onto cookie pans and be sure to cut out a hole in each ornament before baking so you can easily attach string or twine to it later.
I used a toothpick and moved it around in circular motions until I made a big enough hole.
Baking The Salt Dough Ornaments:
Now that you have all the ornaments prepared, it’s time to bake them! I preheated my oven to 170 degrees (you want your oven to be on the lowest setting as possible.
Then, I baked them for one hour and flipped all of the ornaments over and put them back in the oven for another hour.
So it took two hours total to bake them, but the whole house smelled so delicious as I was baking them. So that was another plus to this easy recipe!
Let the ornaments cool completely for a few hours, or overnight even. Once they are cool, you can begin to decorate with them!
Decorating With Your Salt Dough Ornaments:
You can obviously use them for what they are intended for- ornaments. Or you can be even more creative with them.
You could easily make them into a Christmas Garland (also see my orange garland I made last year for more garland ideas!).
You could also make them into gift tags or use them for gift decorations. I plan on doing that with them too.
I love adding things to make my gift wrapping special, so be sure to stay tuned and I will share how I wrap my gifts this year.
If you can’t wait, you can also see how I wrapped my gifts last year too!
Another fun idea for these is to use puffy paint (like I did with my DIY Gingerbread Houses) and outline them just like sugar cookies!
You could even write in someone’s name with the paint to make it more of a personalized gift tag too!
Conclusion:
This was such an easy and fun DIY project and it was very festive too. I am so happy with how they turned out and I love that you can use them for multiple things when you are finished.
Have you ever made salt dough ornaments before?? If so, let me know below!
This makes me want to have a go. I haven’t made salt dough ornaments since I was a little girl. Yours have definitely turned out better than mine ever did.
Awe thank you so much girl. I am so happy with how they turned out!
I’ve never made them but they certainly look easy to do and they look great. With so many commercial Christmas decorations, I love the idea of adding homemade decorations. Thanks for sharing,
No problem! I love adding handmade touches to gifts whenever I can!
I love this idea and using this art form for ornaments and/or gift tags! ! I haven’t heard about salt dough for decades so thanks for the reminder!
Yes no problem! I haven’t made them in forever either so I was happy to do so again!
I used to make these ornaments a lot when I was younger! Fab post and recipe xx
https://www.dellalovesnutella.co.uk/
Yes! I made them in elementary school a lot but I haven’t since. So I thought it would be fun to do so this year!
When I used to work in a school, I made salt dough ornaments with the kids and it was a very messy session! I love the ones you’ve made, they’re very cute! x
Lucy | http://www.lucymary.co.uk
Lol I bet so! Thankfully it wasn’t too messy for me!
My son and I make salt ornaments every year, but we’ve never made them so they smell good. I have to try this!! I’m so excited! Thanks for sharing the tutorial.
Oh yay! You are so welcome. Glad you enjoyed it!
Oh wow! These are so cute and would be the perfect Christmas Tree Ornaments, I love how easy the seem to make, and I bet your house smells incredible after baking them.
Yes it sure smelled incredible while they were baking!
This brings back so many memories of when I was a kid and used to do them at school for Christmas! Yours look much better than what I came out with. Glad to see them xx
Yes! I haven’t done them since I was a kid either so it was so much fun to do them again!
These look so good — and far better than the ones I used to make as a child. I’ve not made these in such a long time but I love how you decorated with them. Thanks for the inspiration!
Thank you so much. I am so glad you enjoyed it. I haven’t made them since I was a kid either so it was fun to revisit it and do it again.
Great post! I want to go and make these now! So glad I found this post on Twitter!
Awe yay! I am glad you found it too then. You should try them out for sure!
Oh, these have turned out fab! I don’t think I have made salt dough for many years, but you have just inspired me to give them a go. I didn’t know you put spices in them, but I bet they smell amazing and very festive!
Thanks for sharing!
Aimsy xoxo
https://www.aimsysantics.co.uk
Thank you! Yes, adding spices in them make them smell so incredible!
I’d tried making these when I was younger and it definitely didn’t turn out as well as yours! What a great idea to use these as gift tags, too!
Thank you! They do look perfect on gifts too!
These look lovely and they’re so easy to make as well! You could get SUPER creative with these and they’d also be a great activity for the kids to do x
Thank you so much. You really could! And yes it is a perfect kids craft!
This sounds like a great way to change things up for your holiday tree!
Yes it sure is. Cheaper than buying new decorations too!
These look lovely and made me go back to my childhood! the add on spices are a great idea, I never thought of that!
Thank you! The spices make it smell so good!
Wow these ornaments look so cute. Thank you so much for sharing the full process of making it. I am definitely gonna try this with my kid.
Awe yay! That will be so much fun! I hope you enjoy it!
I’ve never made these before, but they look so good! I can imagine you can get so creative too, what a great idea. I definitely need to give them a go xx
Hannah | https://luxuryblush.co.uk/
Thank you so much! You definitely should try them out for sure!
These salt dough ornaments look so pretty on your tree! I love that they are easy to make and decorate! I am so looking for colored puffy paint to put on these. 🙂
Thank you so much! Colored puffy paint would be so cool as well!
Omg! This is absolutely ADORABLE! I love it <3
Thank you so much Angela. I greatly appreciate it!
This looks like a fun weekend activity. I’ve never even seen the spray spices before. And I always love any craft with puffy paint.
Yes!! I do too. Puffy paint is the best!
This is very good. It’s fun doing the old projects again haha. It looks good on the tree as well.
Thank you so much. I appreciate it!
Thanks for sharing, these decorations look lovely, I had salt decorations from my nephews one year, they were lovely 🙂
Awe that is so sweet!