Salt Dough Shapes

It has been quite a while since we last did salt dough models so I quickly made some salt dough this afternoon whilst Girl was asleep and Boy was out on a trip to the dump with his Dad.  When he came back I had laid out the dough and some equipment for him.  Girl was still napping so she didn't take part on this occasion.

The recipe for this dough is different to the play dough one I usually use.  Salt dough is used to make models and shapes which are then baked in the oven and go hard.  They can then be decorated and painted and you can keep your child's creation.  It's very simple to make.  All you need is plain flour, salt and water.  The measurements are 2 parts flour, 2 parts salt and 1 part water.  For this small quantity I used 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and 1/2 cup water.  Mix the ingredients together in a bowl until a firm dough is formed.  Knead until smooth.  Job done!

He wanted to make a tealight holder - I suggested this actually because it is an easy shape to achieve and is then functional and could be given as a gift to a great grandmother who's birthday it is soon.  If you know her, don't show her this!

After this he decided to roll out the dough and cut out shapes.  Circles, stars and hearts.

Once you have made your models, put them on a baking sheet and bake for a few hours in a low oven (about 100 degrees).  If your models are quite large or thick it might take up to 3 hours for them to harden.

Once they are done they will be very pale white in colour and very hard.  Once they are cooled you can paint and decorate them.  We will be doing this tomorrow using some glitter paints I picked up at the weekend.  Hopefully Girl will be able to decorate some of the shapes too.  You could use this dough to make all sorts of models and creations - let your children's imagination take the lead and see what they come up with!
Find out what happened when we decorate these here.  To find out how to make some great play food using salt dough have a look at this post.