Pinstrosity: Better Than Salt Dough

NAILED IT!

Jane loves the homemade play dough we made this fall, and I thought we could try our hand at salt dough ornaments for Christmas. I kept seeing pins on Pinterest for "better than salt dough" with the most beautiful image of pure white ornaments. I knew I couldn't get anything that looked like that, but I was still tempted.

The link for the pin led to a private blog (WTH?), so I couldn't use that for more info. The caption seemed to have enough info so I mixed up the ingredients. Uh ... it was a big soupy mess. I did a bit of googling and found a tutorial that told me to COOK the mixture (just like I did with the original play dough recipe).

Ta da! I had pretty white clay, and once it cooled Jane and I played and I made some ornaments with cookie cutters. I also made a baby hand (she wouldn't do her left hand, Grandma Dale) and then trimmed around it. All seemed OK.

I think I made them too thick/didn't roll out the dough enough. I KNOW that I left them in the oven too long. I was trying to dry them out and I think I cooked them because they turned brown and cracked. The baby hand is too heavy as an ornament anyway, so I need to try again (although with thinner dough she would just press her hand right through it and make holes, so I'm not sure on that solution). Basically a bummer and I just trashed them all. So sad.

I'm going to have to think of another way to capture Jane's hand this Christmas. If nothing else just a paper cut out we can hang on the tree next year next to the two impressions we have from Christmases one and two.

Hope you have better success in crafting than we did.