Learn how to make easy Christmas scented salt dough ornaments. Handmade salt dough ornaments are easy for kids to make and a great gift idea.
Homemade | Christmas Scented Salt Dough Ornaments
Scented Christmas salt dough ornaments are the perfect touch to a homemade Christmas feeling. More than likely, all the ingredients that are needed are already in your kitchen.
Salt dough ornaments are easy for kids to make. Kids can make a wide variety of designs and styles using cookie cutters. After these are baked, the ornaments can even be painted.
Christmas Scented Ornaments
The smell of scented Christmas ornaments will fill the air of your home with the scents of the season. Using natural spices of ground cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg with a hint of orange essential oil is the perfect holiday scent.
I try to focus the holiday season on making memories with the children and creating traditions that they will always remember. We started making homemade ornaments last year and plan to carry that tradition on into this year.
Handmade ornaments are also a great gift idea to give. Tie them on packages, or personalize them and give them to loved ones to hang on their Christmas tree.
The Best Scented Salt Dough Ornament Recipe
2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground clove
2 tsp nutmeg
10 drops Orange essential oil (optional but it adds to the amazing smell)
How to Make Scented Salt Dough Ornaments
1. Mix the flour, salt, spices and the orange essential oil if you are using it.
2. Then, slowly add the water until you have a workable piece of dough. You don’t want it to be gooey and sticky, so I always start with a little bit less water and add if I need more. The dough should be close to the consistency of play-dough.
3. Roll out the dough and cut out the desired shape that you want for your ornaments. If you are hanging the ornaments, you will need to use a skewer, straw or something to create the hole for your string.
How to Bake Salt Dough Ornaments
1. Place the ornaments on a baking sheet and put in the oven at the lowest temperature possible. My oven was set to 170 degrees.
2. Bake the scented salt dough ornaments for 1 hour, then, flip them over and bake another hour.
3. Lastly, remove them from the oven and allow to cool. Then, be creative because you can leave them plain, paint them, create a garland, tie them on packages or simply use as ornaments.
More DIY Christmas Ideas
Air Dry Clay Ornaments
How to Dry Cranberries for Decorating
Dried Orange Garland
How Long Do Salt Dough Ornaments Last?
Homemade salt dough ornaments can last a very long time. Salt is a preservative that will ensure that your ornaments don’t get moldy.
At the end of the Christmas season, simply wrap them up, very carefully in some tissue paper or newspaper. Place them in a storage location where they will be safe from getting smashed or destroyed. One of the safest ways to store ornaments is in a box designed for ornaments.
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Hi Sarah! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! It is my favorite. My boys and I enjoy making ornaments every year for our trees. We decorated an entire tree this year just using the ornaments we made from this recipe. It looks so beautiful and smells amazing! I also love your orange garland and have made it these past two years. Thank you for sharing your life with all of us. You are a blessing! -Andrea
Andrea,
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave me such a sweet comment! I am so thankful that you have made the ornaments and garland. You are making some incredible memories with your boys.
Sounds like a great recipe! Have you ever tried the cinnamon and applesauce recipe? I teach 3 yr. olds in preschool and use this recipe every year. It makes my classroom smell so good. Use equal amounts of cinnamon and applesauce. Mix together, roll out on aluminum foil, and cut with cookie cutters. Pull away the unwanted part and re-roll and cut more. It takes several days for this to dry. I usually turn them over after a couple of days to dry out the back of the ornament. No baking required. Don’t forget to punch a hole at the top with a straw so that you can hang them.
I am gathering ingredients to give this a try; I am a week away from a Young Adults progressive dinner at my house…this garland wld be amazing at my sun porch windows…could I ask how you knotted the bakers twine as you spaced out the stars? Thank you.
wcloss94@gmail.com
Thanks for the comment! I simply pulled my sting as long as I wanted it, then I formed a loop where I wanted a star. Put the star through the loop and then tie a knot. Push the star up to the knot. Then, move down the string where you want another star, make another loop, put the star through and make the knot. If you are doing a long garland you will want to make your string about twice the length that you need so that you have enough. I hope that is helpful. It is the same process that I used to make my orange garland last year. https://rockyhedgefarm.com/blog/diy-orange-garland-homemade-holiday-series/11/10/2017
I hope you enjoy making these!
FYI… the directions do not say how thick to rollout the “dough” but I found that 1/4-1/2” is best. The thicker the better. I also used a straw to make the holes. I cut the straws in fourths and thirds as a “new” straw works best. The dough stays in the straw making it a neat job. I also found that the garland requires two knots; one in front of the star and one behind. I used a small, 1” cookie cutter that made about 132 stars!
Thank you for sharing these added instructions!
Hi Sarah, I wanted to thank you for this lovely recipe ! I made them with my grand daughters this week all the way over here in New Zealand and they turned out wonderful, and like you said the house smelled fantastic !!. I am loving your blog 🙂
Blessings to you this Christmas ~ Linda
Hello! Thank you so much for commenting and letting me know that you made them. I am so glad that they turned out well!
Thank you Sarah! My "cookies" turned out perfectly!
Wonderful! So glad to hear that!
Have you used other scents as well? For instance, pine or lavender…
I haven’t but I imagine that you could
Where did you get the tiny star cookie cutters?
It is a vintage find but you can find them on Amazon.
If you want to paint them, what do you suggest? I have other cookie cutters that I would like to use.
I made these today. I had made salt dough bears for years. This recipe was easier to work with than the one I had been using. However I felt they did not have enough scent. I will make them again but with more cinnamon or cinnamon essential oil. The string was very hard to tie but I loved the look. Thank you for sharing this recipe for salt dough stars.
I am glad that you liked the recipe! Thanks for sharing.
Can you put these stars on outside Christmas tree?..?…?.
I wouldn’t. Depending on how thick or thin they are, they may get damaged in the wind. And, I am not sure how the weather may hurt them.