How to make salt dough decorations

For Green Friday, we wanted to share a way of repurposing inexpensive everyday items into priceless homemade gifts. Let's be as sustainable as we can this festive season!

Follow our step-by-step guide to making these super easy and fun decorations that can be used as tree decorations, present toppers or festive ornaments. This is a great activity to get the kids involved with too.

You’ll need:
Salt
Flour
Water
Baking paper
Cookie Cutters
Skewer
Metal straw
Acrylic paints
String or ribbon

Mix together 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of table salt and 1 cup of water in a large mixing bowl.

Knead the dough and add extra flour until the mixture is no longer sticky. Leave to sit for 20 mins, (the perfect time for a cuppa) and then roll out onto a well-floured surface, to a thickness of approximately 6mm.

Use cookie cutters to stamp out your decorations. If you wish to add details we suggest a metal straw as it's the ideal size and shape for tree baubles and snowmen buttons, but there's plenty of utensils that will do the job, so get experimenting!

Use a skewer to poke a hole in the top of the decorations you wish to hang. Make this slightly oversized as it may shrink in the oven. Why not try out different designs? We've demonstrated a button-style design by making two central holes.

Bake for about 3 hours at 120C, flipping half way through to make sure both sides are thoroughly dried out.

Once they have fully cooled down, get creative and have fun decorating your decs with acrylic paints. Add some twine or ribbon to them and hang on the tree, add to a present or even wrap up as the main gift! These can be loved for many years to come.