Hello!
As you can tell by the title, today I will be showing you
how I made these really cute DIY keepsakes or Christmas tree decorations.
You could do baby hand prints etc for other occasions also!
You can use this dough to make any shape you like, I chose hearts
and put my fur babies paw prints on them, you could also just use it
as a modelling clay that sets hard.
I tested this last year and I thought it was cute so I thought I'd show you how I did
it and you could possibly use this as a small gift for someone or tie it onto a
gift tag etc.
They are really cheap to make, really easy and really quick!
Click 'read more' to find out how I made them!
❤
So this requires three/four ingredients;
1. Plain flour (must be plain, not self raising!)
2. Salt, ordinary cheap table salt is fine
3. Water
4. Any colouring you may want to add
(I used a vegetable based,vegan hair dye... it's safe for my fur babies feet to touch
and it adds colour! Food dye will work for this.)
firstly you need to put equal parts of salt and flour into a bowl,
there is no specific measurement, it just depends how much dough you want.
I used a child sized tea cup for my measurements which was around 3-4 big
tablespoons worth.
Once you have both the flour and salt in the bowl it is time to add some water,
You will probably need around 2 tablespoons but I'd add this gradually and if you
need more then just add a little bit more, you don't want it to be runny.
You should stir the ingredients while doing this... if it's too sticky then add more flour.
Keep adding flour until you're able to pick up this powdery ball of dough and knead
it just until it's all mixed, this took me about 30 seconds.
Above you can see the dough is still a bit stodgy, I do fix this after colouring the dough.
Next I split my dough into two plastic dishes (due to using hair dye)
I only split the dough as I'm making two different colours.
I then added a dash of each dye onto the dough... to protect my hands I put on
rubber gloves but this did make it more difficult and stick to the gloves.
After kneading the dough and spreading the dye throughout it then it looked
something like this!
I didn't add too much dye as I wanted a baby blue and baby pink shade like you'd
have for a baby girl & baby boy :')
They do dry slightly lighter than the dough appears.
After adding the dye I kneaded the dough balls separately through some extra flour,
this just took the sticky texture away -
as you can see they now have a powdery finish.
Time to roll it out!
I put flour down on my work surface and got ready to roll...
Apparently there is no rolling pin in my house... no fear if there isn't one in yours
either as I found a solution...
I rolled a drinking glass (that was evenly shaped) in flour!
I then rolled my dough out to the thickness I wanted.
The thinner you make them then the harder it is to make a hand print or design
without poking through the dough and the thicker you make the dough then it will take
longer to dry so just take this into consideration.
I then used a heart shaped biscuit/cookie cutter in two different sizes.
I also experimented with my excess dough and made a mixed/ombre heart!
you could experiment and make loads of unique designs!
I then placed them onto a plate, some of them came up with the biscuit/cookie cutter
and others I had to scrape up with a knife as they stuck to the work surface...
Don't worry if it becomes misshapen, just roll the dough out again
or re-mould it with your hands.
This is what my hearts looked like!
I made several so that I could have a few attempts and pick the best one!
This is also helpful for if you mess one up or if you're making a few for
different people.
I find if you're trying to get hand prints of animals or babies then you will
need a few back ups.
Animals tend to resist a little more... don't force them!
I held my cat like I normally would, placed her paw onto the dough where I wanted it
and then let her walk away from my lap,
her standing up to walk put pressure onto the dough which created the print and
it didn't bother her at all.
I then did the same with Rowlow (my ferret) hence the tiny paw prints...
he was much harder to do as he doesn't have much weight to put onto the dough.
As I was making 'christmas decorations' I did take a plastic drinking straw and stab
through the dough in the corner, if you twist the straw and pull then it will act like a
spud gun and removethe chunk of dough... this will be where your tree string/ribbon goes.
This is obviously optional depending if you want to hang your product...
you must make the hole at this stage though as there is no going back once it is dry.
Once all my little hearts had holes in they were ready to set!
I did leave a few blank as they would be cute tree decorations without anything on.
They look a bit like the shabby chic hearts that are
really popular in home ware shops right now,
you could make someone a DIY dangle heart charm for
their bedroom using this method as the dough never goes stale or smells.
I like to leave mine to air dry, I've tried a baking and microwave method before and
both ended badly, air drying can take 2-3 days.
You could put them on some tissue and onto a flat topped radiator
or just leave them somewhere in your room to dry.
If you are leaving them to air dry for 3 days then I'd recommend turning them over
after the first day and then again on the third day just so they dry all the way through...
when testing this the first ever time I didn't turn them; the front dried and
the back part that touched the plate didn't.
And there you have it!
2-3 days later and you have DIY decorations/keepsakes!
They will dry hard and to a matte/powder finish... you can cover them in pva glue or
any clear drying craft glue if you want a glossy finish.
They are fragile, as you can see in the photo below the pink heart has a crack
through it from knocking it off a shelf,
I just glued it back together but it's still annoying, so be careful!
I made the decorations in the below photo last year and used them to show you the
effect of them once dry.
The white heart was the first one I made & it says 'Rowl 2013' as it's Rowlow's foot print.
I think it will be nice to look back in a few years time or once he's no longer with me
and see his little foot print and know how long ago I made it!
Although this wasn't the shortest blog post,
these decorations literally took me 5-10 minutes to make and then left to dry
for 3 days with only turning them every other day to worry about!
They're super easy & I love them!
I hope you enjoyed this post & if you find any willing victims to sit and have their
hand/paw prints taken then I'd love to see them.
Thanks for reading!
-No products were sponsored-
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