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pink and white salt dough hearts on twine laying on a marble board with pink ribbon next to it

Salt Dough Heart Garland

This salt dough heart garland is an easy craft to make and perfect as Valentine's Day decor.

Ingredients

  • 1-1/4 cups flour, plus a little extra to add as needed
  • 1/2 cup salt
  • 1/2 cup water
  • red food coloring, optional
  • wood heart mold (linked above)
  • string or twine

Instructions

  1. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour and salt.
  2. Gradually add in the water, a little at a time, stirring after each addition of water, until the dough is able to hold together. You want the dough to be pretty dry, but not crumbling.

  3. If you’re adding food coloring, do it now. I just used 2 drops of red food coloring to get a pink color. I placed a couple drops of food coloring directly on the dough and then folded the dough repeatedly until the color was thoroughly worked into the dough. You may need to add flour to the dough as you’re doing this if the dough starts feeling a little wet again.

  4. Dust the wood mold with a bit of flour.

  5. Take a small chunk of dough and push into the mold, filling to the height of the mold.

  6. Bang mold upside down to get dough out.

  7. Place hearts on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

  8. Use a straw or skewer to create holes in the heart for stringing as garland.

  9. Bake at 200ºF for 2 hours, turning hearts over half way through the baking time.

  10. Hearts should be dry and hard when done.

  11. String hearts onto string or twine and hang.

Recipe Notes

The hearts may lighten while drying out, due to the salt. I liked the look of mine like that and left them as is. But you can rub a little bit of olive oil onto the hearts to darken the color.