Salt Dough Bear Magnet

Salt Dough Bear Magnet
by Amanda Formaro

Kids love to create things, and this darling little bear makes a great addition to your refrigerator.

You will need

1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup water
acrylic paint in brown, black, light brown, and white
paintbrush
pencil
toothpick
clear acrylic sealer
magnet strip or circle
white craft glue

IMPORTANT NOTE: This recipe for salt dough makes a lot of ornaments. If you only plan on making a few, cut this recipe into fourths or in half.

What you do

Preheat oven to 250 F. Mix together, salt, flour, and water until a dough is formed. Knead the dough on a floured surface until the mixture is elastic and smooth. If dough is too sticky, sprinkle with flour, continue to do so until stickiness is gone. BE CAREFUL. Do not add too much flour, this will dry out the dough and will cause it to crack before you get a chance to bake it.

THIS DOUGH IS NOT EDIBLE.

Roll out the dough. To make the bear, you can either use a round cookie cutter, the top of a drinking glass, or do like we did and simply roll a small handful of dough in your hands to form a ball. Our bear is approximately 2 inches long, but the size is completely up to you!

Once your ball is created, use a the palm of your hand to press down gently, just to remove the roundness, circle should still be about 1/2" thick. Use dough to roll another ball, about half the size of the first one. repeat the pressing process and position on top of the larger circle to create the muzzle of the bear (see photo). Create an even smaller ball for the nose, press onto muzzle. Last, roll two more balls, about three times the size of the nose, for the ears. Position at the top of the head and gently press them together with the dough of the head.

Use a pencil to dot on whiskers, draw a mouth, eyebrows, and half circles in the ears.

Place the bear onto the cookie sheet and bake for approximately 2 - 2.5 hours. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. For best results, allow bear to cool and dry overnight, or for at least 4 hours.

To decorate, paint the bear's head and ears with brown, his muzzle with light brown, and his nose and mouth with black. Use a fine tip paintbrush or a toothpick to fill in the outline in the ears with light brown and the whiskers with black paint. Let dry. Use toothpick or fine tip paintbrush to dot on black eyes, let dry. Use toothpick to dot on the white part of the eyes. Finish with a coat of clear acrylic sealer.

When sealer is dry, glue a magnet to the back and hang proudly on your refrigerator!


About the Author:
Amanda Formaro is the entrepreneurial mother of four children. She is the Chief Editor of FamilyCorner.com Magazine. Visit her crafty blog for new projects and other ramblings!... [Read More]

Reconstituting dried out clay

Place dried out clay in a zip-lock bag with 1-2 tablespoons of water in it [depending on how much clay you have in the bag--use less if it's just a small amount]. Place in the freezer overnight. Take out and once it's thawed, it should be ready to use. Good luck!

Salt Dough "Cookies"

I found a recipe for salt dough in an old craft book and have used it for many projects around the house. My home is mostly decorated in a Country -- with a Noah's Ark motif, so I cut my salt dough into Ark and animal shapes. If I'd had cookie cutters, I would have used them, but I didn't have the appropriate shaped cutters. I made the salt-dough according to the recipe and rolled it out, as if I were going to cut out sugar cookies. I laid my pattern on top of the dough and cut it out using a sharp X-acto knife. --- I searched the internet and my craft magazines until I found or drew my own patterns. My Ark is about 5 inches wide by 3 inches tall and the animals are between 2 to 3-1/2 inches. I added details with various items, such as spoon tip arcs to make shingles on the roof, and cardboard strips to mark "boards" with broken toothpick nail holes. Once the "cookies" are baked, they come out extremely hard and look alot like plain sugar cookies. I used a portable drill to drill holes in them for hanging. (I tried making the hole before baking, but sometimes it closed up during baking and more than likely wasn't in the right place anyway!) Holding the item lightly between your fingers and letting it "swing" into its natural position will tell you if it will hang straight -- if not move your fingers and try again! I used thin strips of country plaid fabric cut with pinking shears as a hanging ribbon. (Sometimes I had to poke it through with a large blunt needle -- like a child's crewel embroidery needle) If the item gets broken, (I broke a couple while drilling the holes) they can be fixed almost "good as new" with a little multi-purpose white glue. I have hung them from basket bows, cabinet knobs, shelf spindles and lots more places.

I used evergreen garland as a base for hiding an unwanted border along the edges of my kitchen ceiling. I covered it with various silk leaves and dried filler, then wound in a wider "ribbon" of the country plaid fabric and tied on the salt dough decorations. (I did the decorating at my craft table and then hung them in the kitchen. I twisted the center wire of the garlands together and tied the "ribbons" together to hide where one garland ended and the next one started) I also used them to make a centerpiece for my tables. I built a frame of dowel rods to form a "tree," padded it with towel scraps and wound more of the plaid "ribbons" around it. I "planted" my tree in a crock (I found one with an animal motif on line" and covered the foam with spanish moss. I then tied pairs of animals together with a bow between and hot glued them dangling from the branches with the bow on top of the branch. I topped it with two arks back to back on top. I did another larger center piece with the same idea for another room, but made a "gingerbread" style house in the shape of an ark out of the salt dough for the base. Then I m... [Read More]

Painting Salt Dough Items

After my dough items dry, I paint them with finger nail polish.