Salt dough leaf decorations
With Thanksgiving being celebrated next Thursday we wanted create some fun and simple activities to do at home with your little ones to celebrate with our friends in the USA. Like these simple leaf decorations. They are made out of salt dough, a fun and easy activity for kids and you will have all of the ingredients in the cupboard already! Once you’ve made your decorations you could hang them off a decorative branch and make it a table centre piece for your thanksgiving meal!
Here’s how to make them:
250g plain flour
125g table salt
125ml water
Selection of dried leaves
Method
1. Preheat the oven to its lowest setting and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
2. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the water and stir until it forms a ball.
3. Next flour a work surface and roll the dough out to flatten it. Press your leave with the veins facing down so that you get an impression of them onto dough. Then using a blunt knife, carefully cut away the excess dough so that you are left with your salt dough leaf. Use a straw to make a hole in the top which you can later thread string through to hang up. Repeat until all dough has been used up.
4. Put your finished items on the lined baking sheet and bake for 3 hrs or until solid.
5. Leave to cool and then paint if you like! We painted ours with watered down acrylic paints.
Top tip! If you want to make your salt dough smell super yummy too you can add a pinch of cinnamon powder to your dough at the start. Just make sure the children don’t eat any!
We used our little woodland animals in this photos. You can find them here:
