Adventures with Salt Dough

Yikes! I found all these great articles and blogs about toddlers and kids making ornaments out of this stuff called salt dough. Its a three-ingredient concoction guaranteed to be fun for your little ones. Actually, I had lots of fun making it and playing too!  My goal was to make it with Isaiah, and we would use it to make Christmas ornaments with his hand print/fingerprints on them.  Fail. We made the salt dough. We followed the directions exactly. And it was kind of this gooey mess. So, I kept adding flour until it had the consistency of play dough... which it was supposed to have BEFORE adding extra flour. Oh well. Once I got the mixture right, it was lots of fun. I didn't get to take pictures of the actual "making" process because it was just Isaiah and I at home today. We had salt dough everywhere.  So, if you want to do it with your kiddos, here is the recipe (so simple):

1/2 cup of salt
1/2 cup of water
1 cup of flour

Mix with a mixture or your lovely spoon (we used a spoon so that Isaiah could mix too)! Mix until it sticks together, then knead until the dough (supposedly) reaches the consistency of play dough. This is where I had to add extra flour. Isaiah was doing the kneading, and his little fingers were covered! But it was fun! Roll out with your rolling pin and cut shapes. Or, in Isaiah's case, cut out shapes for the first ten minutes, then create your own sculptures and shapes. Then, bake in a 200 degree oven for 4 hours or so to dry out your shapes/ornaments. You can find detailed instructions complete with pictures here. 

Recommendations: Add flour until the dough is basically "not sticky". Use flour when rolling out (similar to the way you would use flour in any type of cooking with dough... on the surface, on hands, and on the rolling pin). I never got around to cooking my dough to dry it out so I don't know how adding additional flour would effect that step.

It was a lot of fun. I think Isaiah liked playing with salt dough because it does have a somewhat grainy textures, so its a little different than store-bought play dough. He also got to help me make it. He did fabulous with it. He most likely enjoyed playing with salt dough the most because its super messy. And if its messy or dangerous or something he can climb, run, bounce or step on, well, Isaiah likes it. 

Enjoy the pictures of our salt dough adventure.

Love this. Looks like he's trying to decide what to make.

I couldn't get enough of his little hands!

Rolling dough like a pro!

Look at that messy pile of craft stuff in the background... and ignore it.

Making "star shapes".