Easy Salt Dough Ornaments and Garland

3 Materials
30 Minutes
Easy

Salt dough is quick and easy to make, and works just like cookie dough! You can cut the dough into any shape and once dried, use the ornaments to create holiday decorations, mantel garlands, package decor, and so much more! For today's DIY, I'm sharing a sweet heart garland that I made for my mantel, but remember you can use ANY cookie cutter to create seasonal decor! Easter eggs, rabbits, Santa, stars, snowflakes, etc!


Welcome, I'm Cindy and budget friendly decor is my favorite thing in the world! I love to share crafts, decor ideas and DIY projects on my blog, DIY Beautify. I hope you'll come by and check out hundreds of ideas!

Salt Dough Recipe

The ingredients couldn't be simpler! All you'll need is flour, salt and water!


1 cup table salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup room temp water

You mix the flour and salt in a bowl, add the water and mix until a sticky dough forms.

Then dump the dough onto a floured surface and knead with your hands for a few minutes until you have a nice, smooth dough bowl.

Looks good enough to eat, doesn't it?? Ha. Make sure your kids don't try to take a nibble!

This dough works just like sugar cookie dough. Roll it out to between 1/8" and 1/4", using a little more flour if needed to keep it from sticking. I like to use a (affiliate) Silpat mat for this.

Cut out shapes with your cookie cutters.

If you're going to be hanging the ornaments, don't forget to use a toothpick, skewer or straw to make a hole for hanging. You won't be able to do this once the ornaments have dried out.

You can also add some decorative details while the cutouts are soft. Use something with texture to make a pattern on the dough.

Pop the ornaments into a 200° oven and bake for 2-3 hours. You might want to flip them over halfway through so they dry out more evenly.

I made TWO different variations of hearts and garlands, which I'll share below.


FIRST, with my small hearts, I threaded some cotton kitchen twine through the holes using a needle. I tied knots on either end of the heart to secure each one in place.

And attached it to my mantel using (affiliate) Command decorating clips.

For the SECOND garland, I decided to hang the large salt dough hearts from a beaded garland I already had up.


To make the hearts match the white beaded garland, I painted the salt dough hearts with one coat of white chalk paint, front and back. They almost look like cement or plaster because of the surface that is pitted from the salt.

I tied jute twine through each heart and then tied them to the existing white beaded garland on my mantel. They turned out SO CUTE!

I really love playing around with salt dough and am planning another craft soon. I hope you try this, it's a fun afternoon project to do with kids or grands, and the results are so pretty whether you leave the ornaments natural or paint them!

Suggested materials:
  • Flour   (home)
  • Salt   (home)
  • Cookie cutters   (home)
CINDY DIY Beautify
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  1 question
  • 11609717 11609717 on Feb 26, 2022

    Can you do beads in different sizes?

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