With Spring on our door steps and Mothers Day fast approaching I am so drawn to the beautiful Spring flowers that are providing us with some much loved (and missed), bright colours - Daffodils in particular are my favourite! We have been busy creating some super cute Salt Dough Daffodil Keepsakes and we can't wait to share them with you!
While you are here be sure to check out our Daffodil Handprint Art we did last year too! It's just beautiful and it's what inspired us to make these keepsakes!
If you follow our blog, you will know by now that we are a HUGE fan of keepsakes and we enjoy making many of them with Salt dough!
Why do we use Salt dough you ask?
- Its VERY simple to make and being a busy Mommy (as we all are) I like to keep things as simple as possible!
- It is SO cheap! Cheap as chips! Buy supermarket brands and you will get the ingredients for pence! Great if you are planning on making large amounts to create keepsakes with groups of children!
- The children can be INVOLVED pretty much throughout the whole process, with caution of course around the boiling water (which soon cools when added to the dough).
- When prepared and dried correctly it LASTS for years and years!
To set about making some of these super cute Daffodil Thumb Print Salt Dough Keepsakes you will need to make a batch of salt dough. We have the easiest recipe for you that you can FIND HERE. Our recipe is extremely popular and almost always features as one of our top posts (you can see them in the right hand column).
Before I talk about the process let's just look at everything you will need:
Salt
Plain Flour
Boiling Water
A Cup
Bowl - UK
Rolling Pin UK
Sharp Knife
Oven (if you wish to use one to speed up the drying our process)
Acrylic Paint UK
Paint Brushes UK
Varnish UK
Optional - Gift wrapping such as see through plastic bags UK, tags and ribbon. They will really add the finishing touches if you are planning to give them as gifts.
Once you have your dough made, roll it out using a rolling pin. Support your little ones by imprinting their thumbs into the dough to make a flower shape. I personally felt that 5 of my 3 year olds thumb prints made a perfect flower shape. I also found too that by her making these imprints the 'center' of the flower oozed upwards making and even more realistic daffodil.
I then used a sharp knife to cut around the flowers. I cut them into circles but you can choose to cut them into different shapes if you wish. I have used playdough tools to cut the dough in the past but I do find that a sharp knife will leave you with much cleaner edges. Experiment and see which you prefer.
Now I have been making Salt dough for a LONG time and I have never really had any problems making it! So this time I did get a little carried away and decided to turn my oven right up and try and speed up the drying out process.....
This was a MASSIVE fail and cracked the dough!!! Grrr!!
Moral of this story - low gas mark, take your time.
I do always make more than one of the keepsakes so luckily I didn't have to pester my 3 year old to return to make more dough and imprints, which was a good job because by this time she had already - 'washed up' (her request), cleaned up, dried off and was putting her wellies and coat on for a run around in our rainy day garden.
Once the dough was dry, we set about painting. This is another reason why I like making several of the same keepsake as I love sitting with her and painting them together! I know we can be very tempted to paint thing in the 'correct colour' and have everything looking super neat but honestly you cant beat childrens art!
It's their keepsake so give them the opportunity to express themselves! Have some daffodils on the table in front of them and be sure to point them out but if they want a purple flower with black spots let them go for it!
Be sure to look at these super cute Salt Dough Easter Keepsakes we made last year:
We have made these keepsakes themed to pretty much all year round you can take a look at them all in our Saltdough Keepsake Collection. My personal favourite is the Snowmen! You may have seen it as the post went VIRAL and seemed to be absolutely everywhere!
You could also look at PINNING IT for reference throughout the year?
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