Kids Crafts – Coloured Salt Dough Recipe

Welcome back to Kids Get Crafty! Finally the kids and I got out our easy salt dough recipe and got crafting. I do hope that today’s topic of, ahem, pooh, hasn’t put you off and that you will stay for a read…. Pooh?! Who crafts with pooh… well we do… and there is a story as to why! But first to our salt dough recipe – exploring a bit of colour theory, some dinosaurs and two stories.

The Book

Harry & The Bucketful of Dinosaurs, by Ian Whybrow. I decided it was time to “broaden” Red Ted’s horizons and introduce some dinosaurs into his world (I have another fab dinosaur craft up my sleeve and need Red Ted to be “keen” on dinosaurs before I can do that one). We already have Harry & the Robots, which Red Ted adores, so when this book was suggested to us, I thought it would be perfect. And indeed it was. We find Harry in the attic with his grandmother sorting through things – when he finds an old box full of dinosaurs. He brings them down, cleans them and fixes them. Learns all about their names at the library and becomes great friends. One day however, they are lost and Harry is inconsolable. Luckily the lost and found office has indeed found them – *phew*. What I love about the Harry books (or at least the ones we have), is that it encourages to make, mend and clean – it is never “about the new” toys, but about the ones that Harry has put lots of love and effort into. A great message in my eyes. It also encourages about learning and passion. Perfect. We love the book and it gets the big thumbs up!

And, ahem, another book:

The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business, by Werner Holzwarth. Ok, this one is for the Dad’s. Toilet humour through and through! But I mention it, as it is not often that a GERMAN author is translated into English AND does REALLY well. Did you know this is originally in German? There you go! I love buying books from different countries it really makes “our library” more interesting. Here we have a story of a little mole that wakes up one day, only to find that, erm, someone has done their business on his head. Off he goes to find out who it was… Surprisingly cute (?!). Maybe a good one to get when you start potty training – though nothing to do with potties, toddlers often get obsessed with Nr 2s at that stage at may really enjoy it. Go on… you know you want to! Available in German & English (and possibly other languages?).

Another reason it is featured here, is, that I have been taking part in the Notes From Home carnivals whenever I can. Recently there was a twitter discussion, whether there should be a carnival of pooh… well… how can I not take part?!

The Craft

I thought the carnival of pooh would be a great way to explore colour theory – well not just the colour brown, but how brown is “made”. Usually, if I let Red Ted paint with as many colours as he wants, we usually end up with a brown at some stage… so to make it more interesting, I though we could make our easy salt dough recipe and explore… not wanting to delve straight into brown, I wanted to try greens, oranges and purples – enter the dinosaur craft:

Salt dough recipe: Flour, salt, water, blue, red & yellow paint. Oven (optional). Varnish (optional).

1) First I made salt dough in blue, red and yellow. Our red paint looks a little pink like, so we called it pink, but it is kind of red…  to make salt dough:

• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 cup of salt
• UPTO one cup of water
• Poor in the water bit by bit. You don’t want the salt dough to be too wet. I kept ours quite dry – and added the last bit of water with the paint.

2) Having divided the dough into 3, I added the paints – as this step can be a little messy

3) Start salt dough crafting – I pointed to the book and asked Red Ted which dinosaur he would like to make and then asked him about the colours we need… lucky for me he pointed to the green one with the orange spine… so “Red Ted, how do you get Green?” – blank face. I told him we take blue and yellow and do lots of mixing. I had to help get the “final green”, but he had a go…

4) Shaping the dinosaurs – very interestingly, I said to Red Ted, “what do we need?” “A body” “A head” “what is on the spine” etc… Red Ted started making dinosaurs quite similar to the pictures (for his age group). If left him to it, we got new creations (sometimes parrot like, sometimes blobs)… I think a combination of “questions” and “free play” are best – this way he learns to look at details but also gets to do his own thing! I encouraged “sausage making” for tails and small bits for eyes (our pink dinosaur has HUGE eyes).

5) I then asked him what would happen if we mixed ALL the colours together  - we did it and got a grey! I was hoping for brown – I believe it is the salt that turns it grey? I didn’t really want to make grey pooh… but when we looked at the mole book, I realised it was PERFECT mole colour! So we made a mole and an orange pooh instead. Perfect. The I hasten to add that the mole was a joint effort. Red Ted isn’t able yet to do “details” such as a small nose and arms. His approach is wedging stuff on, which I then shaped a little. Red Ted then made a yellow dog, with pink eyes and a blue tummy. Lovely.

6) You can bake salt dough in the oven at around 100C (low heat). I did this to help it set, then turned them upside down on our radiator to help the centres dry out… this can take a few days.

7) They will loose some of that vibrant colour.So I decided to varnished them for Red Ted in order for that vibrant colour to come back!

I believe the mole and dog are his favourite – his love for these and thus the pooh book just goes to show that he is a boy through and through! *Sigh*.

Here our Rogues Gallery:

The Mole & Dog:

Red Ted loved them so much, he didn’t want to go to nursery (where is only one day a week and he LOVES), as he wanted to stay home to play with them all and make “more” with mummy…

Happy Dinosaur and Pooh Day.

Linking with the upcoming Notes from Home Pooh carnival.

What have you made from Salt Dough in the past? Have you got a fail save recipe or other ideas? ALL kids related crafts very welcome – but today especially salt dough & dinosaur crafts!

For more Kid’s Craft ideas, click here for a full list.

If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, I would love for you to link up:

If you enjoy blog hops and link up parties.. do go and the fabulous Play Academy & Something for the Weekendevery Friday and Monkeys Doodles every Monday!

Oh and joining in the Carnival of Pooh

Heather at SAHMlovingit experiences a korma calamity (that phrase will stay with me forever now!) in What’s On The Specials Menu Today Then? Hannah at Metal Mummy experienced my worst nightmare in I thought I’d Seen it All, then I saw Tapoo. Mañana Mama discovers the joys of letting a baby run round the house naked in Deja Poo. I’ll never be able to look at those toy slides again in quite the same way. Jane at Northern Mum with Southern Children gives us poogate in Supernanny never as to deal with this and also the story of her first bowel experience (you will have to go over and read to see exactly what she means by that!) in Could you have done this? Sharon at I ? Motherhood has also taken one for the team in Aaaaargh – POO! Make Do Mum gives her run down of memorable poo moments in Top of the Plops. Cara at Freckles Family shares her memorable number two moments in You know you’re a mother when….. Wendy at Inside the Wendy House takes us through the happy stages of scatology in Not for the squeamish! Badger Mad tells us about her fascination for nappies and introduced me to a new word I’ll be putting to good use, ‘poonami,’ in The Varied Colours and Textures of Life.Ella’s from Notes from home talks of the great task that is potty training. Cathy at Nurture Store gives us some ideas to make the most of nappy changing time in 3650 nappy changes: make the worst the best. Merry at Patch of Puddles gives her children stories for their wedding days (and I learned another term – ‘poo-nuke’) in Posting about Poo. Jax at Live Otherwise (Making it Up) gives parents-to-be useful advice in I didn’t sign up for this! Domestic Goddesque gives us a scene many of us will be able to relate to in Moments in Motherhood. Mummy Beadzoid shares her experiences of dealing with poo when your baby is in SCBU inPoop those cares away. Stacey at It Takes a Woman writes about constipation, starting solids and Baby Led Weaning in Blogging from A-Z: C is for Constipation. World of a mummy at A tired mummy’s blog gives us Postcards from Potty-Land. Nova at Cherished by Me highlights the debilitating coeliac disease. Natasha at The Domestic Anarchist has become a poop connoisseur in Mr. Poopy Le Poo… Jenny at Gingerbread House gives her advice to new parents in Tales of poo. Emma at Major Love of Film had her daughter write their post for this carnival, check out their post Carnival of Pooh. Sara at Chocolate, Carbs and CMT tells us why she’s getting a shed and moving in there.