By contributing writer Beth
We love to celebrate Easter in lots of different ways, and we try to fit in a number of activities for the kids. These Salt Dough Easter Ornaments are an easy way for the kids to have fun celebrating the season.
We used this salt dough ornament recipe. It’s easy to create with only flour, salt, and water.
Instead of painting and gluing the ornaments, we decorated with some other food items we had in the pantry.
Here’s a list of items we used to decorate the Easter ornaments.
- Adzuki Beans
- Black Beans
- Black Eyed Peas
- Chia Seeds
- Green Lentils
- Green Split Peas
- Millet
- Pinto Beans
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Red Lentils
- Red Quinoa
- Wild Rice
- Yellow Popcorn
- Yellow Split Peas
This is just a short list of items that we had. Get creative and see what your kids find to use!
Salt Dough Tips
- Make sure to use lots of flour when you roll out the dough. We floured the counter, the dough, and the rolling pin so it didn’t stick.
- Sometimes all that flour can make the dough too dry. This could lead to cracking. When the dough gets too dry, wet your hands and then handle the dough gently until it regains its elasticity.
- Don’t roll it out too thin. ¼ inch is the perfect thickness.
Decorating Tips
- Cutout the hole first so the design you choose works around it. I used a straw to poke the hole in each ornament.
- Be sure to dry the ornaments on a very low heat in the oven so the popcorn doesn’t pop and the dough doesn’t turn brown. I baked mine at 200 degrees for 4 hours.
- Mix colors and sizes to make the ornaments interesting.
- Symmetrical cookie cutter shapes work well with symmetrical decorations, but if the shape of the ornament isn’t symmetrical, it could work really well with an out-of-the-box design.
- Use toothpicks to move small pieces around. The rice and millet were so tiny I also used tweezers sometimes to place them just where I wanted them.
- Arrange the decorations on the dough and then pressed them into the dough before baking. This helps most of them stay in place.
- If any of the decorations fall off when the dough is dry, use glue to reattach them.
- You can paint the ornaments with tempera paint to add extra accents after baking.
You could use these ornaments to hang on a front door wreath or just let the kids decorate all the dresser pulls and cupboard handles with these sweet (and sometimes silly) celebrations of the season.
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