RSS Feed

Salty Fun!

December 17, 2012 by admin

IMG_1240

Until recently, we had not experienced the joy of salt dough projects.  It was just one of those crafts that we never got around to doing with our kiddoes.  But we discovered we had been missing out on a ton of fun!

It is beyond easy to knead together a batch of salt dough:

  • 1 cup of salt
  • 2 cups of flour
  • 1 cup of warm water

 

Mix all your ingredients in a large bowl and work it with your hands for about 5 minutes.  If you find that your dough is tacky, slowly add more flour until you can easily manipulate the dough without it sticking to your fingers.

IMG_1246You can then break your salt dough into separate batches and add food coloring.  Or you can decorate any completed project once it hardens up.  We found that most thin shapes take about 12 hours to harden with air drying.  We did not bake this dough, though you can if you are in a rush.  The above recipe yielded about 14 ornaments and a large amount of IMG_1251leftover dough.  Kept in an airtight container, your dough will stay fresh for many more days of fun crafting!

We decided to work our salt dough into ornaments for handmade gifts.  It was incredibly easy for our kiddoes to create shapes – much like Playdough!  We used butter knives, canning lids, and cookie cutters to help with our designs.  Since we were making ornaments, we had to remember to poke a hole into our final shape before the drying process.  We laid our ornaments out on a drying rack and allowed them to set overnight.  Now, all that remained was the decorating.

Don’t feel that salt dough is limited to ornaments during the Holiday season!  You can make any shape or design, allow it to dry, and glue a magnet to the back.  Or you can poke a hole in a shape for a lovely handmade necklace charm.  It can be used to make animals and figures to play with (totally non-toxic!!), or to create additions to dioramas.  There are so many crafty options to explore for frugal ways to make meaningful gifts, or just to have some fun family time.  And everything will be from natural ingredients that are typically found easily within a cupboard or pantry.

Mix up some salt dough and see what you can create!


No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.