Yesterday we finished making the salt dough hand and foot prints we had started on the night before. I had been looking for a kit to do hand and foot prints for Addison, but they were all pricey. I remembered back to when Peyton was an infant and the kit that I was given then was pretty terrible.
So as an avid do-it-yourself person, I decided that I could come up with something on my own that would not only be inexpensive, but be fun and easy to do with my girls. Then I flipped through my idea book and glanced on pinterest for something to spark my creative eye and realized that salt dough was an easy solution to my problem.
So how do you make salt dough? The recipe for salt dough is:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt (I’d recommend table salt)
Cold Water (start with 1/2 cup)
Instructions:
Mix your ingredients together until it has the consistency of play dough. I started with a 1/2 cup of water and probably added in less than 1/4 cup more. Then, I added a significant amount of flour in addition to the 2 cups called for in the recipe. The salt dough will be sticky at first, so you need to add in enough flour to make it like play dough and to get rid of the stickiness.
Then roll out your salt dough on a cookie sheet.
Since I was making hand and foot prints, I wanted my salt dough in circle shapes. So I used a small plate to get the right size of the circles I wanted and then a pizza cutter to cut the shapes out.
Once it’s cut out in the right shape, make your hand and/or foot prints in the salt dough. If you plan on hanging it like an ornament, use a straw to puncture a hole in your salt dough at the top. (Disregard the coloring that you see – I had food coloring on my hands when I started this project. It wasn’t a problem since I was planning on painting the finished product anyway. Also, the specks that you see are from the salt. When we made this batch of salt dough, all I had on hand was sea salt, not table salt. It works the same and doesn’t make a difference as long as you paint it. If you are not planning on painting it, then be sure to use regular table salt).
Once you have made the hand and/or foot prints in the salt dough, leave the salt dough on the cookie sheet and place it in the oven. Bake it at 250 degrees for at least 2 hours.
When your salt dough comes out of the oven, make sure it has a hard, rock-like feel. It needs to be completely cooked through. Once it cools, you can paint it. Our daughter had a lot of fun helping painting these creations!
Here are closeups of our finished products:
After you are done painting, make sure to seal the finished product. You could use a sealer or even mod podge. Seal both sides and it should help your creation from ever falling apart.
If you have any questions, let me know. Has anyone out there ever done anything with salt dough before? If not, it is super easy and you can make absolutely anything out of it. Simply mix up the ingredients, create, bake and paint! Ta-dah! Easy crafts for kids (and adults) of all ages. Happy crafting!
