Rainy Days...

Rainy days sort of fill me with dread. My son is a very active little boy and would love to spend all day at the park, but when we're home, he often wants to sit and watch something and it can be difficult to think of new and exciting things to do. So. When I see squalls of rain outside, my first thought is "what on earth are we going to do today?"

Today was one of those days. The answer, came as if by magic. Salt Dough. I have never made it before in my life, and I have never even pursued the possibility. I don't know what made me think of it today, but I did. At first, I thought of it only as a play doh substitute. It was only when I found a suitable recipe that I was reminded that you can MAKE things with it and bake it! Isaac was absolutely and completely made up about the idea of making something with play doh and then painting it....like two hobbies in one!

Salt dough, traditionally, is something that's baked in the oven, and can often take a long while. This recipe suggests cooking it in the microwave (read it here). I was thrilled. As a Mum, I'm pretty spontaneous. If I have an idea of something to do, I like to do it immediately. I don't like waiting for another day, and I don't like doing something that doesn't have instant results...like salt dough. Perhaps that's because I know Isaac would lose interest! So this recipe suited me down to the ground! It LITERALLY took me 3 minutes to make and we had ages worth of fun.

Recipe

1/2 Cup Salt
1/2 Cup Water
1 Cup Flour

Mix it all together. I needed all the water, but you might not. It should be quite a dry dough, so if yours is too wet, add more flour.

I equipped Isaac with a suitable knife, some cookie cutters, and a rolling pin.

Isaac is incredibly excited for Christmas....for Christmas trees, presents, songs, and Santa Claus (or Clawhauser if he's getting confused with Zootropolis), so we made some tree decorations with cookie cutters and used a chop stick (of which we have plenty- my husband lived in Japan for 2 years) to make the hole in the top.

After we made those, I was inspired by Isaac pressing his hand into the dough and decided to do some hand print ones. I'm delighted with how they turned out!

To make them, I...
-flattened out a ball of dough until it was about 1cm thick.
- Pressed their hands into the dough to make a print, focusing on each individual finger, then their palms.
-Then I used a pen to draw the outline of their hands into the dough
-I then wrote their name, age and the year.

I was initially concerned with how the details would be preserved on cooking but I needn't have been. They looked exactly the same!

Before...

After!

I cooked mine in 30 second increments. The original blog suggests a cooking time of 3 mins in total in 10 second increments. Mine needed a shade longer than 3 mins, and I turned my dough pieces over once to make sure they were cooked through.

Some of my snowmen bloated a little, so they'll be quite fragile, and part of Isaac's hand print burnt but other than that, this worked wonderfully.

My next salt dough project will be a little nativity. I can't wait!!

See Rainy Days Part II for my "Painting Bath" idea...coming very, very soon!