Preparations 3 - Salt dough
*****Edited to add some important painting info*****
Christmas Fair time rolls round again - next Saturday I'll be up to my eyeballs in some kind of crafty endeavour with a zillion clamouring primary schoolers. Thought we'd have a go at salt dough Christmas ornaments. But a trial run with my resident assistants seemed to be in order.
Recipe: 2 parts flour to 1 part salt. Mix in some warm water to form a dough. Knead for 10 minutes until nice and smooth.
I had anticipated some freehand modelling, but it's harder to do than I had thought. Not sure the under 10 crowd would be too impressed, but my testers perked up when we broke out the Christmassy cutters. My inability to see a cute cutter withoutwanting buying it evidently has it's up sides!
I have a whole batch drying, so the punters on Saturday can paint one ready formed ornament and model one of their own to dry and decorate at home.
But I'm going to need a vat of hand cream afterwards, because a couple of hours dealing with desiccating effects of the dough has left me with lizard hands. Ick.
*** A couple of folks asked about painting these. I had planned to use Acrylics, but BIG word of warning - they don't work very well. I found out (luckily the night before the fair) that tempera/poster paints work much much better. Apologies for misleading you (and for raiding my boys' paint box)*****
Christmas Fair time rolls round again - next Saturday I'll be up to my eyeballs in some kind of crafty endeavour with a zillion clamouring primary schoolers. Thought we'd have a go at salt dough Christmas ornaments. But a trial run with my resident assistants seemed to be in order.
Recipe: 2 parts flour to 1 part salt. Mix in some warm water to form a dough. Knead for 10 minutes until nice and smooth.
I had anticipated some freehand modelling, but it's harder to do than I had thought. Not sure the under 10 crowd would be too impressed, but my testers perked up when we broke out the Christmassy cutters. My inability to see a cute cutter without
I have a whole batch drying, so the punters on Saturday can paint one ready formed ornament and model one of their own to dry and decorate at home.
But I'm going to need a vat of hand cream afterwards, because a couple of hours dealing with desiccating effects of the dough has left me with lizard hands. Ick.
*** A couple of folks asked about painting these. I had planned to use Acrylics, but BIG word of warning - they don't work very well. I found out (luckily the night before the fair) that tempera/poster paints work much much better. Apologies for misleading you (and for raiding my boys' paint box)*****
Comments
Cathy XX
Take care - the salt dough takes a few days to dry out, so if you're pre-fabricating them, start early!
My smalls and I made Christmas decorations from salt dough a few years ago ... I thought they'd go mouldy or cruble, but no - they're still going strong!
Hope you don't mind if I bookmark and visit again?
I'd like to try making these along w/the cinnamon/applesauce ones we made a few years ago. Kids enjoy them a lot and though the finished product might by lumpy/lopsided and funny looking - they will be nostalgic treasures when they are grown.
We break up for one month of hols in only 3 weeks and I'm desperately amassing lots of crafty projects (a few stolen from you already i should add!) to keep the wee people amused. One month of xmas hols - god help me....
I must try with my boys... (that's one dough they won't eat... ha ha ha)
Thank you
Kim x
PS the cake in the previous post looks very yummy
We still have 2 weeks to go so time for a trial run ...
Thank you