Salt Dough Bird Ornaments

Celebrate the run up to Christmas this year with our 'four calling birds' salt dough ornament craft. Use our coloured salt dough recipe along with sequins and feathers to make these cute Christmas ornaments.  Toddlers and preschoolers will love this invitation to create and the colourful bird ornaments look so cute hanging on the christmas tree.  

Related: Bird Crafts for Kids

We have a gorgeous collection of Christmas ornaments that these cute little birds are part of. Do take a look at the other ornaments we have made or if you only want salt dough crafts take a look at our salt dough ornaments. 

These gorgeous birds were made after singing the carol 'The 12 Days of Christmas'.  We decided to make the 'four calling birds'. We used brightly coloured salt dough along with loose parts. 

Salt dough bird ornament supplies:

• Coloured salt dough (follow our easy salt dough recipe - we added lots of acrylic paint to our salt dough to get these lovely bright colours)
• Bird cookie cutter (UK link/ US link) 
• Mod podge glue and sealer (UK link / US link)
• Colourful feathers (UK link/ US link) 
• Sequins (UK link/ US link) 
• Googly eyes (UK link/ US link)
• Thread or ribbon (Uk link/ US link) 

Salt Dough Bird Ornaments

To make our colourful bird ornaments we mixed up some brightly coloured salt dough.  We followed our easy salt dough recipe and added lots of brightly coloured acrylic paint to the water before we mixed the water with the other ingredients. I love the resulting brightly coloured salt dough. 

Before beginning this craft activity with Harry (aged 3) I set the table up with a section of coloured salt dough, feathers, sequins, googly eyes and a bird cutter.  

I made a bird myself to show Harry what to do (and because I couldn't resist giving it a go!).  He loved my bird and he was very eager to make his own "baby bird".

Harry made a bird in each of the 4 colours.  To make the birds he flattened the salt dough, one colour at a time and then used the bird shaped cutter to cut out bird shapes.  

 

He gave each of the birds a googly eye, decorated them with sequins. He finished them off by making them a colourful tail made from a feather. He wanted the feathers to match the colour of the birds. 

The eyes, sequins and feathers were pushed into the salt dough and most of them stayed in place on as the salt dough as it dried (we did have to glue one or two sequins back on though). 

 

We made a hole in the top of each of the birds (to put the thread through for hanging) using a straw.  Then we left them to dry by the radiator for a couple of days.  We turned them over several times to make sure they were fully dried out all the way through. 

We usually dry our salt dough out in the oven (which takes a couple of hours), but we couldn't do that with these ornaments because of the eyes, sequins and feather we had added. 

As the salt dough dried the colour of the birds faded a little, but sealing them brought back some of the colour.  

We used mod podge to seal the salt dough.  It is really important that you seal your creations as if any moisture gets into the salt dough they go soggy. 

I tied some thread through the hole on each of the birds and our colourful birds were ready to be hung on the Christmas tree. 

We had fun experimenting with mixing some of the different colours together and adding glitter to the salt dough.

With the remaining salt dough Harry created a couple of bird models which he was extra pleased with!

 

We also used our bird cookie cutter to make some bird feeders. Click on the image below to find out how: 

We hope you have enjoyed making your salt dough bird decorations. Do take a look at our other DIY Christmas ornaments. 

For more Christmas crafts and activities click here