Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornaments

 

Growing up in Germany, salt dough was definitely a very popular crafting material! I hadn’t really thought about it in years, but for some reason, the memory came back to me in the lead-up to this Christmas season.

E and I went ahead and made a batch of salt dough. It was so simple to make from incredibly simple ingredients, it took color REALLY well {I don’t remember coloring our salt dough way back when – although we did sometimes paint it with watercolors after the fact}, and it didn’t even get discolored when we baked it!

We both really enjoyed making these quick and simple Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornaments – and I have a feeling that there are more salt dough crafts coming up over the next few weeks 🙂

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

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Materials for Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornaments

  • 1 cup of flour.
  • 1/2 cup of salt.
  • About 1/4 – 1/2 cup of water (add slowly over time).
  • Food coloring {I used gel food coloring this time} or liquid watercolors (optional).
  • Ziploc bag (optional).
  • Candy cane cookie cutter.
  • Straw to punch a hole into the ornament.
  • Bakers twine or other string.

 

Salt dough is a no-cook recipe, so it was very easy for E to do it all herself. She mixed two parts of flour with one part of salt, then added about half a part of water.

I thought it was a bit dry

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

but we stuck with it to avoid making the dough too wet. Adjust to your preference!

After we’d rolled the salt dough into a ball, I used the technique from my old Magic Play Dough to put in some gel food coloring.

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

I still didn’t trust the food coloring not to stain our hands, though, so we ended up kneading it inside a Ziploc bag.

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

We purposely didn’t color the dough completely red.

E rolled out the marbled dough and cut a candy cane from it.

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

I decided to try a different technique and alternated bits of plain and red salt dough.

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

It worked really well, even after I rolled it out.

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

E cut out the candy cane for me 🙂

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

If you don’t have a candy cane cookie cutter, you could easily make a snake from the dough and form a candy cane by hand.

Either way, don’t forget to punch a hole into the top of the candy cane ornament! All is not lost if you forget, you can always glue the string to the back, but it’s definitely easier if you make the hole. We used a straw, but a toothpick will work, too.

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

We put the candy cane ornaments into the oven at the lowest possible heat {170°F for us}. They stayed in there for a LONG time. I actually took them out after about 5 hours, then put them back in again for several hours the next day because I wasn’t sure that they were completely dry.

I have to admit, I didn’t expect the color to be so bright in the finished ornaments! I thought it would fade somewhat during the drying time, but it actually turned brighter!

I remember salt dough crafts from my childhood always ending up quite brown after their time in the oven – but obviously, the temperature we used was low enough to avoid any discoloration.

I was very happy with how our salt dough candy cane ornaments turned out! We hung them up with pieces of bakers twine, and they look great on our mini Christmas tree 🙂 {See the hand-colored ornament on the left? E test-drove one of the printables from our 24 Days of Christmas Printables advent calendar and declared it her favorite way of making ornaments! Make sure you don’t miss out and sign up for our special advent calendar newsletter now!}

 

I hadn't used salt dough in decades, but now that we've tried it, I think we'll make a LOT of salt dough Christmas ornaments! Check out these simple salt dough candy cane ornaments from plain and colored salt dough!

 

Have you done any salt dough crafts lately? What did you make? Leave a comment below!

 

Here are a few more candy cane crafts you may enjoy!

 

Scented Marbled Candy Canes Craft

Candy Cane Wrapping Paper Collage

Paint Chip Candy Canes from Happy Hooligans

Simple Fine Motor Candy Cane Craft from School Time Snippets

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. I love the marbleized-look for the candy canes! Thanks for sharing at the Thoughtful Spot!