DIY Christmas Tree Decorations from Salt Dough

I had a very fun Sunday making some DIY decorations for my Christmas Tree. We’ve decorated the lounge since last year so our old decorations no longer match the room, I bought some silver baubles and snowflakes from Ikea but wanted to add a homemade touch to the tree with some white ornaments. To do this I whipped up some salt dough and spent a fun afternoon cutting out shapes and painting them!

You need:

One cup of plain flour

Half a cup of salt

Half a cup of water

Half a teaspoon of cinnamon and nutmeg (optional)

Acrylic Paint

1.Preheat the oven to 100 degrees centigrade.

2. Mix the salt and flour in a bowl and then add the water a bit at a time until you have a firm dough that’s not sticky.

3. Divide the dough into three, knead half a teaspoon of nutmeg into one and cinnamon into the other. This gives the dough a Christmassy smell but is entirely up to you – the plain dough works just the same.

4. Split the balls in half and roll out to about 3mm thickness and use cookie cutters to cut out the shapes you’d like. I used scone cutters for the circles and reindeers and old plasticene cutters for the bells and stars. Use a skewer to punch a hole for the tie in each cutout.

5. I used stamps to emboss words onto the star cutouts, gently pushing each letter into the dough one at a time. For the snowflakes I used a plunger press cutter I already had, pressed down the plunger and pressed it into the round disc cutouts.

6. Place the cutouts onto a baking tray and into the oven for 3 hours, turning them over half way through. This dries them out gradually.

7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

8. Now the shapes are ready for painting in whatever colour you choose, I used white and silver acrylic paint. Acrylic covers the dough really well.

10. Leave to dry and thread with twine or cotton to hang.

And here’s my finished tree in all its glory – small but mighty! How have you decorated your Christmas tree this year? Have you gone with a particular them and have you made your own DIY Christmas tree decorations? I’d love to know!