DIY Salt Dough Advent Spiral

This year we made our advent spiral out of salt dough. My 3 year old boys loves to pour the ingredients into the mixing bowl, mix and knead the dough, and shape the spiral. This was the perfect nature craft for their age, and a meaningful part of our holiday tradition. If you want to know more about the meaning of advent in Waldorf, and other Waldorf winter traditions, you can read my article going deep into the topic here.

I paired the advent spiral with my Acorn flashcard which you can find here, which is also part of my Nature Alphabet Bundle. The Squirrel is from my Fox Puppet Set which you can find here, or in my Fox Study Bundle.

While my boys are young, we aren’t doing candles everyday. For now we are using little pinecones, crystals and acorns to add to the spiral every day. We put a Beeswax Walnut Candle in the middle, which I made in a previous tutorial. If you are making a bigger spiral, you could make a Beeswax Apple Candle for the middle.

Supplies

1/2 cup of salt

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of warm or boiling water

Marbles

Wooden Acorns

Moss or Evergreen

Walnut Beeswax Candle

Instructions

1. Gather your salt, flour and water. Heat a 1/2 cup of water. Mix water with 1/2 cup of salt and 1 cup of flour.
2. Once the mixture starts clumping, pull the dough out and start kneading it on the table.
3. Roll the salt dough into a long snake shape. Form a spiral.
4. Press a marble into the dough to make the circular impressions. If the dough sticks to the marble, dip it in water before pressing it into the dough.
5. Preheat the oven at 250 degrees.
6. Bake the spiral for 2+ hours until hard.