DIY holiday garland / salt dough recipe

This diy holiday garland is a sweet and easy craft to get your home ready for the fall and winter months! I loved putting this craft together with a few different elements and techniques!

diy holiday garland pine cones dried oranges and salt dough on wall with twine

Materials

Oranges
Pinecones
Flour
Salt
Twine
Hot glue

Salt Dough

To start off, you are going to make your salt dough. Mix together 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, and 3/4 cup water. Knead the dough until it forms together, you can add more water if needed. You will basically want to get the consistency of play dough. Once it is ready, roll it out to about 1/4 inch and cut into star shapes! I would suggest using a cookie cutter, which I actually didn’t even have (but yay for a good problem solving moment!), so I drew and cut out a paper template and cut out the dough using a knife. This was a little tricky but it works! Then use a straw or something of the sorts to poke a hole for tying on the string. Once you have all your shapes ready, place them on a pan with parchment paper and bake at 200 degrees for 20 min, then flip and bake for another 10. Then there you go! You have your first part of the garland!

**Dried Oranges**
Second you will grab one to two oranges. You could probably just use one, but I like leaning towards the side of making extra incase some turn out better than others, I can pick out the good ones to use. Cut the oranges to about 1/4 inch slices. Pat both sides with a paper towel to get any excess moister off of them. Place them on a baking pan with tinfoil, and I sprinkled mine with some sugar to see if it would make them more glassy. I’m not sure if it did much so you can do this step too or just skip it! and bake them at 200 degrees for 1.5 hours, then flip them and bake for another 1.5 hours. Check on them after an hour to make sure they aren’t burning. You will want them to be a dark orangey brown but not all brown! They can burn pretty easily so just keep a close eye on them the whole time! Once they are done just pull them out and set aside.

Pinecones

Last piece you need to get prepped is the pinecones! You could buy some probably from a craft store, but I grabbed mine just from a park! When you get them from the park or your backyard you will notice they aren’t always all cute and opened up. But there is a special trick to make them perfect for decorating! Preheat your oven to 250 degrees, and put your pinecones on a pan lined with tinfoil and bake for 30-45 minuets. You will find that the pinecones will actually open up! This also kills any unwanted buggies hiding in them!

Assembly

To start assembly, cut a piece of twine a little extra than you are wanting your garland to be. Knot a loop on each end for hanging. Then cut one string for each pinecone, orange, and star, about 6-12 inches each varying each one. Don’t worry about being super specific. Then tie the twine on the oranges and stars, and for the pinecones, blob a little hot glue on the bottom and circle around the twine onto it to attach.