Learn how to make salt dough ornaments with sparkly beads for a beautiful Christmas ornament or suncatcher any time of year!
Updated December 2023
Salt dough ornaments are a holiday classic and there are a ton of ways you can make them. We’ve been making all kinds of ornaments—lacy ones, stamped ones, and even colorful painted ones.
Sparkly beaded salt dough ornaments might be our favorites. They have a beautiful stained glass effect when hanging in the window, and they sparkle on a Christmas tree!
Be sure to check out our favorite salt dough recipe at the end to help you get started. And for even more craft and ornament ideas, check out 11 Salt Dough Crafts Kids Can Make!
How to Make Salt Dough Ornaments
MATERIALS
- Salt Dough (see recipe below)
- Parchment paper
- Rolling pin
- Cookie cutters
- Straw or other tool to make holes for hanging ornaments
- Glass beads
- Mod Podge
INSTRUCTIONS
- Make Your Dough
Follow the recipe below to make a batch of salt dough. Lay parchment paper down for your dough. The parchment paper helps to keep the dough from sticking to the table.
- Roll Out Your Dough
Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough and cut out shapes with cookie cutters.
- Decorate!
Poke glass beads all over your dough. For the stained glass effect, gently push and wiggle the beads down to make sure they can be seen on both sides of your dough shape.
- Bake Your Ornaments
Use a straw to poke a hole in the top of your ornament. Bake at 225F for 3-4 hours. Let cool completely. Then use ribbon or yarn to hang your ornaments and enjoy!
- Protect Your Ornaments (optional)
Add a coat of Mod Podge to your ornament to help protect the beads and keep them in place.
Our Favorite Salt Dough Recipe
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Our Favorite Salt Dough Recipe
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 hours
- Total Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
- Category: crafts
Description
We’ve tried so many salt dough crafts and made lots of variations of salt dough ornaments over the years. Here’s our favorite salt dough recipe with instructions to get you started.
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 1 cup salt
- 1 1/2 cups cold water (+ extra 1/4 cup of water if needed)
Instructions
- Mix flour with salt then stir in water. If the dough doesn’t come together, add another 1/4 cup of water or so.Â
- Turn out the salt dough onto a countertop and work together with your hands until evenly mixed.Â
- Store in a plastic bag in the fridge until ready to use.
- Place a fist-size piece of dough on a sheet of parchment paper and cover with a second sheet of parchment paper. Roll dough out with a rolling pin 1/8 – 1/4 inch thick.
- Use cookie cutters to cut out the desired shapes. Pull away the extra dough from around the shapes with the cookie cutters still in place.
- Use the end of a drinking straw, a skewer, or a chopstick to poke a hole at the top of each ornament for hanging.
- If you plan to decorate the ornaments, do that step now. Try stamps and a stamp pad, poking a pattern of holes in the dough with the end of a straw, or poking glass beads into the dough.
- Gently move the sheet of parchment paper with salt dough ornaments onto a cookie sheet and bake in a 275F oven for 2-3 hours or until the salt dough is hard, but not browned. Let cool.
- (Optional) Add a coat of Mod Podge or some paint (we like BioColor paint for these) and glitter.
- Add a ribbon through the hole and hang in the window or on the tree!
More Salt Dough Ornament Crafts for Kids
Want even more creative ideas?
Check out our Holiday Creativity pack!
Let’s celebrate the holidays with all things crafty! Here are 53 pages full of our favorite drawing prompts, creative play ideas, art activities, and more!
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