The premise is pretty simple. Mix flour, water and salt into a pliable dough and mould as you would clay and then air dry or bake in the oven until hard. It can then be sanded down and painted. It can even be drawn on. Faultless.
Unless you pick up the wrong jar or flour and make your dough with self raising flour and bake it in the oven where the dough will start to rise and completely distort the thing you've just made. Like i did.
Oh well. At least i know to use PLAIN flour from now on and i did manage to salvage these little hand print ornaments before they got too warped and i finished by air drying them. I'll sand and paint them later.
The great thing about salt dough is that it can be made in advance and stored in the fridge for up to a week so it's great if you want to spend a few days experimenting with a large batch of the stuff.
The recipe i used was:
2 cups flour (plain)
1 cup of salt (finely ground table salt)
1 cup of water
However i found that i needed a lot more flour to get a dough i could sensibly work with without it sticking to everything so 3 cups of flour may be more appropriate. You simply mix everything together by hand (it will break your mixer if you try to use that... trust me, i nearly did) until it makes a pale, smooth dough. It shouldn't be sticky, crumbly or lumpy. If it is, keep kneading and playing with the flour/water ratio until you get the desired consistency. Then you can either work with it straight away or wrap it in cling film and save in the fridge like i mentioned.
Here are some ideas of what you can do with salt dough if you're not inspired by baby hand prints or the typical Christmas tree decorations:
You can set your work by baking in an oven on a low heat for a few hours or letting them air dry for several days in a warm dry place. I popped mine on the radiator and rotated them every few days to ensure thorough drying.
I'll definitely be trying the beads and ink stamping techniques when I make a fresh batch of dough.
This looks like so much fun! I think my mum has one of my hand print from when I was a baby.
ReplyDeleteI love the beads, you could make some great jewellery with them :)
Ashley x
Those snowflakes are amazing! Though I'm not sure I could manage such intricate designs...
ReplyDeleteAndrea x
great inspiration-went to Morrissons and bought me some plain flour and had a try at making these! Currently in oven so fingers crossed they turn out ok!
ReplyDeletethanks:-)
Louise
b
ReplyDeleteFirst, congrats on Miss I!! Thanks for the salt dough tutorial, I've been meaning to make this with my girls, but never seemed to find the time. I'm thinking tonight might be good after seeing your post :o)
ReplyDeleteWow, who knew salt dough could be so effective! Great post. I saw your post over on Dina Wakely's blog re spray inks. You can get these from Wendy at the Stamp Attic and Diana from Art from the Heart, both do online shopping and are great.
ReplyDeleteI've been clicking here and there tonight and have come across your blog ... I have to be honest and say I had a wee giggle over the flour ... well written.
ReplyDelete