Salt Dough Easter Ornaments DIY

If you’re like me you’ve heard about this salt dough business a time or two. If you’re the least bit crafty or into blog reading, you’ve probably seen this, that, or the other thing made out of salt dough. I had kind of written the whole thing off for a very simple reason. All recipes require flour in them. And as someone with Celiac Disease, I just can’t handle touching anything with gluten. And wet flour is very, very gluten-y.

So when I was asked to make some salt dough Easter ornaments I was kind of in between a rock and a hard place. Should I just wear gloves? But if I got some airborne flour in my nose or eyes that hurt pretty badly, too. And I’m super dang messy and accident-prone so something bad would definitely happen.

So I took the basic ratio and used gluten-free flour. I was pretty sure this was going to fail and I was going to have to inform that this was just not a craft I could complete. But guess what? It totally worked. Yay! And now I’m dreaming up tons of ideas for this stuff because A. it’s fun and B. I can.

For this project you will need:

• Flour (or gluten-free flour blend)
• Salt
• Water
• Easter egg cookie cutter
• Acrylic paint
• Brush
• Ribbon or string
• Drinking straw
• Rolling pin (or another item, see below)
• Parchment paper (not necessary but makes things way easier)

Here are your basic ratio… 1 part salt and 1 part water to 2 parts flour. So I made a pretty small batch with 1/2 cup of water 1/2 cup of salt and 1 cup of gluten-free rice flour blend.

Toss it all in a bowl and mix it up well.

It will start to work into clumps…

…when you get those clumps you’ll bust this stuff out onto your tabletop and knead it just like bread dough to get it nice and well mixed and smooth.

Take a long piece of parchment paper and fold it in half. Place your dough inside of the two pieces and roll flat. Here I used a spray can of cleaner as my rolling pin was no longer working when my dad thought it was sturdy enough to lay down new laminate on kitchen counters. FYI – it wasn’t as he found out in about 10 seconds.

Use your cookie cutter to take out as many eggs as you can from your rolled-out piece. You will, of course, need to pull back the parchment paper in order to use the cookie cutter.

This cutter is from a set of many spring/Easter plastic cutters I got from Walmart for around $1.30 which is a heck of a deal.

Peel away the excess dough from around your shapes and use your straw to cut out a “hanging hole”.

FYI – the parchment paper makes this super easy because you’re not scraping dough off of your tabletop hoping that you don’t mess it up. Perfect cut-outs every time that you can easily pick up and handle. Keep this in mind the next time you make roll-out cookies.

While my hanging holes came out perfectly smooth, my outside edges did not. If yours turn out like mine did you can use your finger to tamp down the jagged pieces and make the edges smooth, or take your finger and drag along the sides to smooth out.

Place your cutouts on your parchment paper and onto a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10-60 minutes depending on the thickness. Mine was a little over a quarter of an inch thick and took about 30 minutes. Keep a close eye because these can burn and this is a very wide window of time.

Once cool you can start to decorate these beauties. I busted out the Martha Stewart brand pastel acrylic paints because Martha knows her pastels. They’re gorgeous every time.

Paint on traditional patterns or make your own. Allow to fully dry.

Thread string or ribbon through the hole and tie either a bow or a knot into a loop to hang your ornaments from.

If using ribbon, a piece of tape wrapped around one end of the ribbon will make it easy to thread through the hole.

I made a grand total of 5 but could have gotten a good 3-4 more if I used the scrap I pulled away after the first batch.

Not bad for a cup of flour and half a cup of salt.

I’m pretty sure it’s because I used gluten-free flour which does not contain gluten. (I know I’m a total rocket scientist).

But, little science lesson here, gluten is the part of regular wheat flour that when wet causes the flour to be sticky and bind together well. Gluten makes these things pliable and soft and sort of “chewy”.

But luckily, even if you are gluten intolerant, you can make salt dough ornaments that are perfect for your Easter tree this year!

Allison

A crafter since her earliest years, Allison spends a little time every day making something. She crafts, sews, paints, glues things onto other things, and is a firm believer that a life spent creating is a life worth living. Visit Allison’s blog, Dream {a Little} BIGGER.