
This salt dough recipe is perfect for making DIY Christmas gifts WITH your kids! Use it to make personalized ornaments, gifts or decor, and all by using things you already have at home.
What you need:
I’ve seen recipes using all sorts of kitchen spices, but I wanted ours to stay pretty true to white. So all I used was flour, salt and essential oil to give it a nice smell.
I’ve linked some of these items below to save you time. Some are affiliate links (meaning I make a small commission if you buy- but it is at NO EXTRA COST to you!) 🙂
- Flour
- Water
- Salt (we used kosher)
- Measuring cups
- large bowl for mixing
- parchment paper or silicone mat
- cookie sheet pan
- rolling pin – I have this one and I love it!
- straw
- cookie cutters- I bought this set years ago and am so happy I did!
- Essential oils for fragrance (we used Holiday & Pine by Melaleuca)
- Embellishments of your choosing (glitter, paint, stencils, doilies etc)

How to make salt dough ornaments.
- Mix 2 cups flour and 1 cup table salt in a large bowl.
- Mix in one cup cold water. Slowly drizzle in as you stir to mix thoroughly.
- Knead dough with your hands until the ingredients are fully mixed and your dough isn’t too sticky. If you find that your dough is sticking to your fingers keep sprinkling in flour and kneading. You want your dough to be soft and pliable, in other words- easy to roll out. But you don’t want it so wet that it sticks to your rolling pin! Add a few drops of essential oil for a yummy fragrance.

4. TIP!!! Once your dough is ready you will want to roll it out ON TOP OF A PIECE OF PARCHMENT PAPER OR A SILICONE MAT! The reason I have this in all caps is because this step is super necessary to making your life much easier. Once you cut out your shapes all you will need to do is scrape out the remaining outer edges then lift the parchment paper with shapes on top, and place it onto the cookie sheet. I don’t know about you, but I have never been able to successfully scoop up raw dough without squishing the design.

5. You can also place of piece of parchment paper on top before rolling it out. This will prevent your dough from sticking to your rolling pin.

6. Cut out your shapes! Obviously this is the fun part. We used cookie cutters to cut ours out, and found things around the house to make embossed designs. Some examples would be: a crystal glass, doilies, lace, cheese grater, fork, stencils. You roll or gently press the sides of these into the dough, and it leaves the coolest designs. We even used a leaf from a faux garland. It was plasticy enough that it didn’t fall apart when we pressed it in. Next, you will want to cut out the shapes. Before you bake you can even sprinkle on different types of glitter if you want to give them a sparkly iridescent effect.




7. Be sure to make a hole with a straw! This is if you plan to use these as ornaments, gift tags or you just want to hang them somewhere.

8. Next its time to bake your salt dough ornaments! We decided to bake ours to speed the drying time. You could also let them sit out at room temperature for a couple of days. I set my oven to its lowest temperature setting, and baked for 45 mins to 1 hour. Then I flipped the ornaments over and baked for an additional 45+ mins.

Other ideas for salt dough ornaments.

I love how salt dough ornaments can be personalized! In fact, the sky is the limit! Another great idea for gifts for the grandparents is handprints of the littles. We just painted these to look like Santa and I wrote the name, date and age of each kid on the back with a sharpie. If you like making diy gifts for Christmas check out this super easy snow globe gift card holder HERE!
We also LOVE making THESE COOKIES for gifts. They’re super easy to make and SO GOOD!!!!

Here is another example of a custom salt dough ornament.



I wanted our tree to have a natural boho look this year by keeping the colors neutral. All you would need to do is make one batch of salt dough and you could fill up an entire tree like this one!

Thanks so much for reading! Do you make homemade ornaments? Drop a comment below and let me know some of your favorites!
And for daily DIY and home decor inspo don’t forget to connect with me over on Pinterest and Instagram!

These are so cute! We made these in kindergarten and it was one of my favorite crafts! I need to make them with my son!