No Eggs? Try 3-Ingredient Salt Dough Easter Egg Ornaments This Year

If you're sacrificing your usual egg-dyeing tradition in favor of saving the eggs for Easter Brunch recipes instead, we're right there with you. But if you just can't imagine celebrating the season without pastel eggs scattered about the house, these Salt Dough Easter Egg ornaments hit all the festive, springy notes. They're easy to pull together with ingredients you likely already have in the pantry and craft closet, and it's a fun project to while away an afternoon with your littlest chicks. Who knows? You and your children may be so fond of this creative take on Easter eggs that you decide to skip the mess of egg-dyeing next year too. Hop to it!

Here’s what you need to make Salt Dough Easter Egg Ornaments:

2 cups of flour

1 cup of salt

1 cup of cold water

Egg-shaped cookie cutter

Acrylic paint

Mod Podge or a spray-on, high-gloss glaze (like Krylon)

Twine, ribbon, or yarn

Here’s how to make Salt Dough Easter Egg Ornaments:

1. Make the salt dough (recipe from our friends at AllRecipes). First, mix the salt and flour together in a bowl. Then, add the water to the flour and salt, a few tablespoons at a time, mixing as you go. Once the dough is smooth, knead it for 10 minutes; then, let it rest for another 20 minutes.
2. Roll the dough out, until it's about ½ centimeter thick. It's important that the dough is rolled out thin, as it will bake to the right density and texture this way.
3. Cut out ornaments with your egg-shaped cookie cutter, then use a straw to poke a hole for hanging the ornament towards the top of the egg.
4. Place them on a nonstick baking sheet, and bake at 250°F for two hours, until they are hard.
5. Let the eggs cool completely before you begin to decorate. Sky is the limit here! Paint them with classic stripes, preppy polka dots, or bright spring flowers. Then, seal the ornaments with Mod Podge or a spray-on, high-gloss glaze.
6. Once dry, slip a piece of twine or string through the hole to create a loop with which to hang the ornaments. Finished!

Why we love this craft:

Not only are they easy and inexpensive to make, salt dough ornaments are versatile. While they're designed to hang on an Easter tree, they also make sweet door-hangers—just make the loops a little longer. You can also personalize the ornaments with your children's names and tie them on to their Easter baskets as extra special gift tags. Of course, salt dough ornaments aren't just for Easter; come December, dust off your Christmas cookie cutters and whip up a batch of salt dough Santas.

WATCH: Growing Real Easter Grass Is an Easy Porch Project

When Ivy Odom, our Test Kitchen pro and star of Hey Y'all, was growing up in Moultrie, Georgia, her parents would grow real rye grass to fill in her Easter morning baskets.