How to Prepare and Use Salt Dough to Make Christmas Decorations (And Precautions to Follow)

Whether you are a curious child or a creative adult, salt dough is a game for everyone: modeling it can become a relaxing and fun activity, which allows you to express your imagination and create unique and personalized objects. With salt dough you can entertain children, stimulate them to be creative and imaginative, creating small objects and decorations, for example for Christmas, for a birthday or for some other special occasion.

How to Make Salt Dough

Salt dough is prepared with just a few ingredients: flour, salt and water. It is moldable and versatile, allowing you to create a myriad of decorative objects, from simple Christmas motifs such as garlands or dolls, to more complex sculptures. You can prepare it and leave it in its natural color or divide it into several portions and color it with suitable dyes to create different decorations.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup fine salt
• 1 cup warm water

Method: 

Mix the dry ingredients: In a bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the water gradually: pour in the warm water and knead with your hands until the mixture is smooth and soft, but not sticky. If necessary, add a little flour or water. Knead for a long time: the dough must be worked for a long time to become smooth and elastic.

Once ready, the salt dough can be rolled out with a rolling pin, shaped with your hands or with molds. Then dry it naturally, in the open, for at least a day, or in the oven, at about 140-160°F/60-70°C, until it becomes dry and compact. Keep in mind that cooking times may vary depending on the thickness of the shapes.

To decorate your creations, you can use:

• Food coloring: to add a pop of color to your pasta.
• Natural objects such as seeds, pasta, buttons, to create texture and detail.
• Acrylic paints. Once the salt dough has dried, you can paint it with the colors you like.

How to Store Salt Dough

Salt dough can be stored in the fridge for 1-2 days: wrap it in cling film and place it on the middle shelf. To store it longer, you can wrap it in cling film and then in an airtight plastic bag, then place it in the freezer. When you need it, let it defrost at room temperature before using it.

Salt dough doesn't "go bad" in the traditional sense—that is, it doesn't become toxic or moldy—but it does become too hard to work with. If you notice that the dough has become excessively dry and crumbly, it's best to make more.

Some tips to make it last as long as possible:

• Divide the dough into smaller portions and wrap them individually in cling film: this way, you will only use the amount you need and avoid drying out the whole dough.
• Once wrapped in cling film, place the salt dough in an airtight container or zip-lock plastic bag.
• Don't expose to air: it's the number one enemy of salt dough. The longer it's exposed, the faster it will dry out.

Is Salt Dough Edible?

Absolutely not: salt dough is not edible, despite how it may seem. Even though the main ingredients are edible, the dough is not meant to be eaten: the main reason is that salt dough is often cooked at high temperatures to harden it and make it durable, a process that changes the structure of the ingredients and makes them unfit for consumption. The amount of salt in the dough is high and can cause gastrointestinal problems if ingested.

Young children should always be supervised when making salt dough. If you have sensitive skin, we also recommend wearing gloves when handling salt dough.