Sea Glass Ornaments – Salt Dough Tree Ornament

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We have a little family tradition (started by my Mother in Law) that we bring back a little Christmas decoration from any holiday or country we go on/ to. This year we had our summer holiday in Corfu, but TOTALLY forgot to buy anything that could double up as a Christmas ornament. Instead, we spent hours combing the beach for SEA GLASS! There was LOTS of lovely GREEN SEA GLASS on the beach and I thought that it would be JUST perfect for a Christmas Tree Ornament. Using the ever versatile salt dough, we decided to get making once home! Of course not everyone has sea glass (I understand that!!!), but you can buy it online (links below) or you can make the same Christmas Tree Ornaments using buttons and food colouring! We also have great Sea Glass DIYs round up for you to browse!

Buy sea glass online here (affiliate links):

US readers

UK readers

Sea Glass Ornaments - turn your beach finds into Christmas Keepsakes, by turning sea glass into gorgeous tree ornaments - this is so easy you can even do it ON holiday!

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Sea Glass Ornaments – Materials

  • sea glass – but you can use buttons, shells or beads too
  • varnish (any varnish, I used a polymer clay varnish, but you can use clear nail varnish too)
  • a little craft wire (optional)
  • salt dough – 1 part salt, 2 parts flour, 1 part water (how much you make is up to you.. use a large or small cup, but keep the relative values the same!)
  • Christmas tree cutters (you can get them here: US/ UK)
  • food colouring (optional if you are making button tree)

Sea Glass Ornaments – How To

Here is how we made our Sea Glass Ornaments – it was s fun and easy to do and can’t wait to make more. Check written instructions below if you prefer that to a video!

How to make Salt Dough

We made a second video for the button ornaments, which is very similar, but has a lovely intro that you may like to watch anyway!!

I have added a detailed “how to make” salt dough video as an FYI.. you can watch it or read the instructions below!

Sea Glass Ornaments Step By Step (written instructions)

Sea Glass Ornaments - turn your beach finds into Christmas Keepsakes, by turning sea glass into gorgeous tree ornaments -this is so easy you can even do it ON holiday!

  1. Firstly you need to collect lots of sea glass like we did on holiday!!!! Ok, if you don’t have any, this craft also looks GREAT made using BUTTONS and some green food colouring!
  2. Make your salt dough – mix 2 parts flour, 1 part salt and UPTO 1 part water. If the dough is too sticky, add a little flour until you have a nice smooth dough.
  3. Roll out to about 0.5-1cm thickness.
  4. Cut your Christmas Tree out. You CAN leave the saltdough IN the Christmas Tree Cutter to help keep it’s shape.
  5. I inserted some looped metal wire for hanging later – if you don’t want to use wire, make sure you make a hole using a chopstick for hanging.
  6. Now start gently pressing in your sea glass or buttons. Make sure you don’t distort the shape of the tree. If working with young children, keep the salt dough in the cookie cutter shape. Make sure they are pressed in firmly as they CAN fall out (not a disaster, you can glue it back in place later). You can add the looped wire at this point if you left the cutter in place.
  7. Let dry over several days OR place in oven at 50-80C. Turn if possible OR transfer to a WIRE RACK once it has harden a little, this will help the salt dough dry out on both sides. If you have used a hole for hanging, make sure this hole does not close up during drying – poke it with the chop sticks a couple of times during the drying process.
  8. Once fully dry and cooled you can varnish it. The varnish helps secure any buttons or sea glass that may have come off. Oddly ALL our sea glass remained in place, whilst I had to glue 4 buttons back on.
  9. Let dry! And hang.

Find more Sea Glass ideas here:

12 Wonderful Sea Glass Ideas to inspire - something for all seasons, so very very pretty!

And MANY MORE Christmas Ornament Ideas here:

Christmas Ornaments for Kids to make