How To Make Salt Dough Easter Decorations

Have you ever wondered how to make salt dough Easter decorations? I thought I’d share my fool proof guide. They’re so easy to make and you can bring them out year after year :)

Easter Fun!

Aaaah Easter! It’s such a lovely bank holiday isn’t it?

I like it slightly more than Christmas, as sometimes we’re treated to beautiful weather and it always feels like we’ve properly said goodbye to the back of winter, as spring is in full bloom!

That coupled with, eating your body weight in chocolate eggs, catching up with family and friends and having time to potter in the garden or catch up with some DIY makes the Easter bank holiday a lovely thing indeed!

Last Easter, the boys weren’t even walking! 

They were still chunky little babies who had no idea about the long weekend. This year, as they were slightly more aware of what was going on, I thought it would be nice to decorate the house and create a little Easter tree, so on Good Friday I made some salt dough Easter decorations.

Such a lovely simple thing to make, although the drying time means that it’s not a quick process. I made ours on Friday morning and left them in the oven for 5 hours — on a really low heat — then painted them on Saturday.

Here’s what I did…

How To Make Salt Dough Easter Decorations

Take one cup of plain flour, one cup of salt and as much water as you need to make a pastry like dough. Some recipes suggest a whole cup but I probably used three quarters.

Just use your discretion; if the mix starts to look too sticky, just add more flour.

Next

Roll out your dough and start to cut out your shapes.

I’d bought some little egg and chick cutters but you could use bunnies, flowers whatever takes your fancy!

If you’re going to hang your decorations, remember to make a hole in each one. I used the end of a drinking straw, to make mine.

Then lay then shapes on a baking sheet and pop in the oven for 4-5 hours on a low heat. I cooked ours at 100 degrees and turned them over half way. After 5 hours, I turned the oven off but left the salt dough shapes in there, so they carried on baking with the residual heat.

Now For The Fun Bit!

The next day, when they were totally hardened and cool, we began to paint the shapes. This was the fun part! I used a mix of emulsion, acrylic and  poster paints, topped off with some glitter glaze I had left over from decorating a little girl’s bedroom.

We left some of the shapes in a plain colour and painted patterns on others to mix things up a little. Then left them alone for a couple of hours and — when the paint had totally dried — I threaded ribbon through the holes.

I am so pleased with how these turned out!

They look fab on the little wire tree. We bought it especially for the little Christmas decorations the boys made at nursery. I thought it would be a lovely thing to bring out, year after year — and a great way to display the things that they’d made — but having another use for it is brilliant.

Plus it makes Easter into more of an occasion. When the boys see the little tree — and the salt dough Easter decorations being brought out — they’ll know we’ve got four days of loveliness coming up!

Do you have any Easter traditions?