🪔 This is one of our Diwali crafts, back in the spotlight from Sunday, 18 October 2026 — but you can make it any time you like.

Salt-Dough Diya Lamps

Captain A will help you learn: Children shape and paint little diya lamps from salt dough and light them with battery tea lights. Diyas are small clay oil lamps lit during Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains, to show light winning over darkness and good over evil. Children also see how baking slowly dries the dough until it is hard.

⚠️ Use battery tea lights only, never real candles or oil. An adult should handle the oven and hot trays. Salt dough is not food: it contains a lot of salt, which is harmful to young children and pets if eaten. Keep the tea light's button battery compartment closed and out of reach.

Steps

Tap any step to play from there — the narration plays inside the player.

1▶

Mix the flour and salt in the bowl, then add the water a little at a time and squeeze it into a smooth dough.

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2▶

Roll a piece of dough the size of a satsuma into a ball.

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3▶

Press your thumb into the middle and pinch around the sides to make a little bowl.

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4▶

Gently pinch one side of the rim into a point to make the spout where the flame would sit.

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5▶

Press a battery tea light into the bowl to check it fits, then take it out.

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6▶

Press patterns around the outside with a fork or pencil tip and put the diyas on the baking tray.

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7▶

Ask an adult to bake them at 100°C (80°C fan) for about 2 hours until hard, then leave to cool.

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8▶

Paint your diyas in bright colours and let them dry.

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9▶

Glue on sequins or gems around the rim.

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10▶

Pop a battery tea light in each diya and line them up on a windowsill to welcome in the light.

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Make it your own: Make a row of five diyas, one for each day of Diwali, and decorate each with a different pattern.

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