Remind me again ... how do you make salt dough??

[funnypeculiar]

and any brill ideas for helping a 2 1/2 y o make lovely christmas presents with it?!?

ta muchly

Don't know the answer, but am interested in the replies!!

300g plain flour
300g salt
1 tbspn oil
about 200ml water

plus any food colouring/powderpaint/glitter/kibbles of past-sell-by-date wheat etc (to add different texture) as desired.

Mix and knead thoroughly.

You can cook this to harden shapes - 180 degrees for about 10-20 mins on lightly oiled baking tray.
If making holes to hang as a decoration, bear in mind that salt dough expands slightly on cooking so make hanging holes plenty big enough.

I don't usually use a recipe - just add approx one third salt to flour, dash of oil and water to mix then knead thoroughly.

Must say, that above recipe from Usbourne Playdough Book seems VERY heavy on the salt.

You can get diff textures using self raising flour which makes a squidgier dough.

Oh and say you were to paint star shapes silver and hang them on a red ribbon - do remember that the dough will soften again after painting so needs to be left to dry out again. And if hung in local church entrance with rest of local toddler group stars, due to high salt content and damp atmosphere, they will soften again and fall...

you need to cook salt dough really low and long otherwise it cracks

so at 100 for 3 - 4 hours

2 cups flour to 1 cup salt to 1 cup tepid water plus bit oil

I'd make thick stars and put a big hole in them then get ds to paint and glitter them and tie them with a lovely bit of ribbon .. voila xmas tree decorations

ta all. what sort of paint?

acrylic not poster

but then with a little one you'd want washable .. so be careful

But acrylic isn't washable...

felt pen is good for details/writing dedications etc.

'We'(toddler group) made valentine's hearts out of salt dough made with TWO whole bottles of red food colouring which looked great with silver pen details/patterns drawn on with a touch of black felt pen for low-lighting too. Touch of watered down PVA glue worked as a varnish too.

there really should be a emoticon, so that we can just, ...well..lurk

a smug-playdough-mum emoticon is sadly missing too, Betty.

(are you well, BTW? Harrogate meet-up over due don't you think?)

I'm very well, thanks Emmylou, hope you are too...

A harrogate meet up is very overdue - there seem to be loads of us in North Yorkshire, now - maybe we could hire the conference centre for a huge mumsnet 'Shindig'

(was going to say hootenanny, but couldn't decide how to spell it...)

h'ai think you might just find that's smug-saltdough-mum-emoticon

PS I know acrylic isn't washable which is why I said you'd need washable

let the kids use poster paint then varnish them when theyre dry.
If you want something to last a bit longer Das modeling clay is great and comes in an authentic terracotta colour.
You can roll it out and cut it with cookie cutters. Makes lovely pretend gingerbreadmen.

Thanks all
(hopelessly hunting for useless-knows-nothing-about-crafts-mum emoticon...)

Haven't even found how to do sideways arrowy things yet, so have a way to go...

Twiglett, is the smug-saltdough-emoticon next to the Emmylou-learned-the-hard-way-getting-acrylic-paint-on-kids'-clothes-emoticon?