Today we have a simple make your own ornament kit that you can use at home or as a gift. Giving DIY Christmas gifts is a fun way to keep gift-giving costs down and this ornament making kit works for kids of all ages. Make your own ornament kit contains a dry salt dough, cookie cutter and glitter that you can pick up at the Dollar Store. This works well at home or in the classroom!
Do It Yourself Gift Kits
Make a craft kit to give as gifts are great to spark kids’ imagination. There are a million variations of craft kids you can make and give, but we love this one specifically for the holidays.
Related: DIY Christmas ornaments
It is simple to create including printable gift tags available below that can be attached to any homemade Christmas gift!
What is a Gift Kit?
Basically a DIY gift kit can be anything crafty or yummy where you can give the ingredients/supplies and instructions for the gift recipient to make it freshly at home.
We have given and received gifts of Goop Ingredients, Mask Making Kits, Monster Playdough Supplies, Cookies in a Jar and many more!
We thought it would be fun to make a craft kit with sparkly salt dough that can be baked into pretend cookies.
DIY Ornament Making Kit for Kids
We are going to create an ornament making gift kit that has everything the gift recipient needs to make a salt dough ornament.
The first thing we are going to do is make a plastic bag with the salt dough ready to use.
Supplies for Salt Dough to Add to Plastic Bag
- 1 cup of salt
- 1/2 cup of flour
- 1/4 cup of water
Instructions for Making Salt Dough Ornaments
- Mix the dry ingredients together with 1/4th cup of water.
- If the salt dough is still too dry, add more water by the teaspoonful.
- Let the dough sit at room temperature for about an hour so it becomes more smooth before beginning to work with the dough.
- At this point you can seal it into a plastic bag and add it to your craft kit with instructions as to how to play.
- Roll the dough out like you would cookies.
- Remove carefully and bake at 250 degrees* for 15 min.
*We have a convection oven, so the times might be a little different with a regular oven or dependent on the thickness of the end product.
Package Your Salt Dough with Ornament Making Accessories
We put our plastic bag full of salt dough into a recycled plastic container (see how we made this below) along with some dollar store cookie cutters and fine glitter we found on sale in different Christmas colors.
You can use almost any container as the vessel of your gift. To prove this, we are upcycling a used butter container.
How to Use a Recycled Plastic Container
These are the used plastic tubs that we use to store (and gift) the activity kits at our house. If your house is anything like ours, we go through a lot of random food items that come in interestingly shaped containers, but have wording and advertisements on the outside which would prevent you from using them as a gift container.
These plastic containers are great for storing and giving if you just remove the words and pictures…
How to Remove the Words from a Plastic Container
- To remove the image from the side of your spread tubs you will need acetone (nail polish remover) and a rag.
- The ink comes right off with just a rub! <–bet you didn’t think it would be that easy.
- Be sure to rinse your tub with very hot water after you remove the ink.
How to Add Erasable Labels to a Plastic Container
If you want to have removable labels stating the contents of your tub, use a dry erase marker. For the meals we have stored in the freezer I write the contents on the lid, and wipe after you eat that meal – it is great on busy days to have something we can just pull-out and reheat.
OK, now that we have a suitable container for our gift kit…let’s make gift tags
Printable Gift Tags
Isn’t EVERYTHING more fun with a printable?
Related: Printable Christmas ornaments
We have some really cute ones to share. These do it yourself gift takes will make your DIY Christmas gift so much more special.
Download Your Christmas Do It Yourself Gift Tags pdf File Here
More Homemade Christmas Gifts from Kids Activities Blog
- We love homemade Christmas gifts that help kids develop new skills as they interact with the world around them.
- Looking for more handmade Christmas gifts? We’ve got them!
- This Christmas gift bowl is also an amazing DIY gift as well.
- We even have the best homemade holiday food gifts.
- We have 100+ DIY Christmas gifts you will love!
How did your ornament making kit gift turn out?
Where and how do you add the glitter? In the dough? With glue on top?
Hi, Prescilla! You can either work the glitter into the dough (before you shape and bake the ornaments), or you can use glue or paint and decorate the surface of the dried dough and then sprinkle glitter on it to dry.
I made the salt dough into ornaments this week and the recipe worked really well! Thanks! I used extra fine gold glitter and metal stamps to personalize them. Here they are, hung on my tree: http://mamaartcollective.wordpress.com/2013/12/19/glitter-workshop/
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Do you know if the acetone nail polish remover works with other containers? I tried a yogurt container and it didn’t work. Any suggestions?
I really have only had luck with the Country Crock brand… it is why the majority of our tupperware cabinet it filled with spread tubs. If you find another brand that works well, come back and let us know!!
We find that a wet erase marker works even better for things like this. It is less likely to accidentally rub off but comes off easily with a wet cloth (or in the dishwasher).
That is absolutely brilliant!!