New Year is a great time and the best time to enjoy communication with family and children. Kids love Christmas crafts and homemade Christmas tree toys. Tinkering with the dough is also one of the favorite childhood activities. By combining both, you can decorate the tree with wonderful unique toys.
Salty dough recipe
You will need:
- 1 part fine table salt
- 1 part white table flour;
- 1/3 part of potato starch;
- mixing water.
All dry ingredients must be mixed in a bowl and kneaded, gradually pouring water. The mass should have a pleasant consistency - not stick to your hands, and not be too tight (not to break or crumble).
After the salted dough is ready, decide when you will paint the products. You can paint the mass immediately, or you can paint the toys after baking.
How to dry Christmas crafts?
A few words about drying. To harden the dough, you can simply wait a few days, or bake it in the oven. You need to preheat the oven to the maximum temperature, then put the salty crafts laid out on a baking sheet. Then you need to turn off the oven and do not open it until it cools completely. You can bake on very low heat (like crackers), but then you have to make sure that they do not burn. Another little secret - to prevent the figures from sticking, cover the baking sheet with a baking sleeve.
Of course, not all salt dough crafts can be oven dried. For example, those decorated with beads or beads need to dry naturally.
How to paint the finished product?
There are several ways to make products colorful. Best suited for this are dry cosmetic pigments and water-soluble food colors that are used to make handmade soaps. If they are not there, then you can use Gouache, or watercolors.
After the salted dough is colored, you need to carefully roll it out with a rolling pin, and cut out the necessary figures with molds. Products made from dough of different colors look very interesting (as in the picture). It is a great pleasure for kids to do this kind of mixing.
Another way is to make crafts from white dough, and then decorate them - there are many ways. Kids will do it in gouache, older kids can draw beautiful patterns with felt-tip pens or a gel pen.
Acrylic paints are a great decoration! If you make an ornament on crafts with silver paint, they will look like real New Year's cookies! Paints with a shiny pigment look very beneficial!
Decor ideas
In addition to coloring, there are many ways to decorate future toys. You just need to do this before you dry them. For example, cut out different holes with a straw.
Or make prints and prints with stamps or some kind of figurines.
Decorate with beads, beads or sequins!
The dough crafts decorated with cosmetic glitters look very festive! You need to cover the dry finished product with PVA glue, and then cover with glitters. You can buy them in any nail fashion store, they cost from 60 to 120 rubles.
Or you can decorate the products with cloves, cinnamon sticks, and other spices! So they will not only decorate the tree, but also give a special New Year scent!
Oh, and don't forget to make thread holes to hang your crafts on the pretty Christmas tree!
