I can’t believe it is already December. This year has been rather intense and has gone far too quickly. I am definitely looking forward to having a rest during these holidays.

My hubby is not a lover of Christmas decorations. Actually, he does like them but not having them out too early, so this year, as a compromise, I have made some subtle salt dough decorations, so that I can gently and unsuspiciously start decorating even at the beginning of December.

I have made salt dough decorations for many years. I have even used it to make hand prints of my boys when they were little, which I still have.

My favourite of all decorations I made was about 100 little white stars all strung together, that I used to hang on the hallway’s ceiling. It looked so magical. Unfortunately, they got ruined in the move. Mainly because we left the Christmas decorations in the garage and the humidity made them all go to mush. Nevermind, a good excuse to make some more. This house is so different to our last one, that we don’t even have a place to put a Christmas Tree, since with a dog and 7 cats, there really is no safe place for it!

This time, I decided to add Christmas spices to the dough as I saw a few people doing it and thought I would give it a try.

They turned out pretty good. In fact, I love them so much I might leave them up all year round! You can find the recipe below.

Ingredients

• 120g Flour
• 120g Table salt
• 10g Ground cinnamon
• 5g Ground ginger
• 1 tsp Ground cloves
• 110g water

Should you prefer to have plain white salt dough without the spices, just omit them and add an extra 15g of flour to the mix. They will come out white and won’t have any scent.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 120C (250F).

Mix all the ingredients together until you have a nice smooth dough. Depending on how fine your salt is, you might still be able to see some grains. If you find the mixture is too dry, just add a little water. Likewise, if it is too sticky, sprinkle a little bit of extra flour. Once you are happy with the dough, roll it out to around 0,5 cm. With a cookie cutter (or a playdough shape) of your liking, cut any shape you wish and if you want to hang them, make a little hole with a toothpick or a skewer, bearing in mind it will slightly shrink during cooking, so make sure it is big enough to get your choice of string through it. Put all the shape in a baking sheet and in the oven for around 1 to 1,5 hours. After that, take them out and let them cool down. They may still be a little soft when they come out, so try not to touch them until they have completely cooled down.

When they are ready, you could hang them as they are, paint them or, like me, use some glue and glitter. String them together remembering to knot them in place or use them as single decorations for your Christmas tree etc.

P.S. if you like the spice labels you see in the picture, you can find the free downloadable file here

For another DIY Christmas decoration, check out my natural table centre piece made with pinecones and other things found in nature.