Happy child 13.09.2017

Dear readers, many of us have children and grandchildren who love creativity. And it's wonderful. We offer children paints and pencils, felt-tip pens and plasticine. And more and more often in children's development centers, kindergartens and schools, instead of plasticine, they use salted dough for modeling. Stationery and baby product makers quickly caught the wave and put dozens of types of salt dough on store shelves. How it never happens! And colored, and just white, and shiny.

Of course, you can buy a ready-made color test set. But it is quite realistic and completely easy to make it yourself, at home, because flour and salt will certainly be found in the kitchen of any housewife. Today on the blog, the head of the column, Anna Kutyavina, has prepared for you an excellent selection of salt dough recipes for modeling. I give Anya the floor.

Hello dear readers of Irina's blog! Modeling with plastic materials is a very useful activity for little ones. After all, it not only develops fine motor skills of the hands, but helps the child to master spatial thinking, textures, colors and shapes. In addition, children often feel like real creators of something new and significant while sculpting.

The modern industry offers a large selection of plasticine for modeling. But now I would like to talk about salt dough as a good alternative to purchased plasticine. Its main advantage is safety. Due to the fact that salted dough is made only from safe ingredients - flour, salt, water, high quality food colors - it is an ideal option for the first creative experiences of the baby. After all, if a child pulls a piece of plasticine into his mouth, this, to put it mildly, will not be useful for him. And from salty dough, in which case, there will be no harm.

Plus, salty dough can be made quickly and easily at home. The ingredients are very readily available in every kitchen, and the recipes are so simple that they don't even require any significant effort. But what a wide field for creativity!

Benefits of Salted Modeling Dough

Modeling dough is a mass similar to ordinary plasticine. But, unlike the usual hard pieces of colored plasticine, salty dough:

• much softer and more pleasant to the touch;
• does not stick to hands;
• does not stain hands and clothes;
• does not have an unpleasant odor;
• does not cause allergic reactions;
• safe in mouth, but at the same time tasteless - the child can taste it, but immediately spit it out and lose interest in it.

Types of dough for modeling

Creative teachers and moms and dads came up with a lot of salt dough recipes:

• classic salted dough;
• cooked in the microwave;
• brewed over a fire;
• glowing in the dark;
• with starch;
• with the addition of glycerin, citric acid, vegetable oil, spices, baby cream and even wallpaper glue.

The structure of the resulting dough can be affected by the temperature of the water, the quality of the flour, the amount of ingredients. So if suddenly the first time it turned out not quite what you expected - it doesn't matter, try again. Many mothers share that they interfere with the mixture by eye, and it turns out wonderfully.

Features of cooking salt dough

In order for the dough to be successful, several important points must be considered. Firstly, it is better to take only ordinary flour, wheat, other types - pancake, with different additives - are not suitable.

Secondly, fine salt is more suitable, "Extra". Large grains of salt can make crafts look messy. Although there are recipes with coarse salt.

Thirdly, it is best to use cold water, even ice cold. To make the dough more plastic, potato starch is added to it. And to increase the strength of the material in the recipe, PVA glue diluted in water is used. To obtain a quality dough, it must be intensively kneaded by hand.

High-quality dough is soft, dense, elastic, it does not crumble or stick to hands, it has a uniform color.

You can paint the dough either immediately during kneading, or then paint the finished craft. You can dye both with special food colors, and independently created from cocoa, carrot or beet juice, coffee. The dried product is then painted with gouache.

The finished material for modeling is wrapped in a bag and kept in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. It is permissible to use the dough within a month if stored in the cold.

How to make salted modeling dough - recipes

We will now consider the most reliable and at the same time uncomplicated dough recipes. In addition, the smaller the child, the easier the dough should be - it is better to refrain from complex recipes with "inedible" ingredients. Let's look at recipes for salt dough for beginners step by step.

Classic salty

Any crafts can be made from such material, it is safe and very simple.

Ingredients:

• white flour - 200 g;
• fine salt "Extra" - 200 g;
• chilled water - 125 ml.

You need to add salt to the flour and mix well. Then pour water into the dry mixture in small portions, stirring all the time, in order to end up with a homogeneous and smooth mass. It is also important to monitor the consistency of the dough - it should not be very runny.

Second classic recipe

This recipe is very popular among both experienced craftsmen and beginners in sculpting.

Ingredients:

• white flour - 300 g;
• salt - 300 g;
• cool water - 200 ml.

Take a deep bowl. Pour salt into it, add a little water. When the salt dissolves, add the sifted flour to the mixture. Start kneading in a bowl, and when a lump forms, transfer the mass to the table and knead. To make the dough more plastic, gradually introduce water.

A lot of dough is obtained from this number of components. If you are not planning large volumes of crafts, you can reduce the amount of ingredients by 2-4 times.

Salt mass in the microwave

You can quickly prepare the modeling dough in the microwave.

Ingredients:

• water - two parts of water;
• coarse white or rye flour - two parts;
• fine salt - one part;
• tartar - 1 tbsp. l .;
• food coloring;
• vegetable oil - 1 tbsp. l.

Mix all ingredients. Pour the resulting mixture into a microwave oven dish. Keep in the oven at medium power for five minutes. When the mass has cooled down, it must be thoroughly kneaded.

Salted dough in 5 minutes

The dough according to this recipe is good for those who like to sculpt a lot, often with the whole family.

Ingredients:

• water - 1 cup;
• flour - 1 cup;
• salt - 0.3 cups;
• soda - 2 tsp;
• vegetable oil - 1 tsp;
• food coloring.

Pour soda, salt and flour into a container, pour in water with vegetable oil. Then put the pot on low heat and heat for a few minutes.

Add color and mix well. As soon as the dough starts to stick to the spoon, turn it off, it's ready. Put it on a plate and let cool. Then knead well with your hands.

Such a quick dough is famous for another feature - if you follow the storage rules, keep it in the refrigerator, the mixture retains its properties for several months.

Elastic dough

This recipe produces a very flexible material that is easy to work with.

Ingredients:

• wheat flour - 1.5 cups;
• water - 1.5 cups;
• salt - 2 cups.

Mix dry ingredients and pour in water little by little until the mixture becomes plastic and homogeneous. Crafts from such a test will be durable and aesthetic.

Coarse salt dough

There will be quite a lot of such material, so if you need a small portion, you should reduce the volume of the components several times. The composition is the same as in the classic dough, only coarse salt is taken instead of fine.

Ingredients:

• coarse salt - 300 g;
• wheat flour - 300 g;
• water - 200 ml (1 glass).

Pour salt, pour most of the water into a large container. When the salt dissolves, sifted flour is poured into the liquid in portions. The dough is kneaded.

Salty dough glowing in the dark

Children will definitely like this dough!

Ingredients:

• warm water - 2 glasses;
• white flour - 2 cups;
• salt - 2/3 cup;
• vitamin B in capsules or tablets - 2 pcs.;
• vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. l .;
• tartar - 4 tsp

Grind vitamins to a powder. Mix it with salt, flour and tartar. Pour in water and oil, stir until smooth.

Cook over low heat until the mass becomes sticky and resembles plasticine.

Recipe for volumetric figures

This dough makes the figurines strong and sturdy.

Ingredients:

• white flour - 200 g;
• salt - 400 g;
• ice water - 1.5 cups.

Dissolve the salt in water. Pour in the sifted flour little by little. Knead the dough.

Dough with glue (not for small children!)

This recipe is not entirely natural, but it helps the mixture set and dry faster.

Ingredients:

• flour - 1.5 cups;
• water - 1.5 cups;
• salt - 1 glass;
• glycerin - 4 tbsp. l .;
• dry wallpaper glue or PVA - 2 tbsp. l.

Mix everything except glue, knead the dough like for dumplings. Add glue, previously diluted in a small amount of water. Stir the resulting mass well.

More tips for making salty dough easy can be found in this video.

Drying salt dough at home

The prepared figurines must be dried well. This can be done outdoors, outdoors or indoors where a fresh air stream circulates. This drying option is the most economical.

It is best to dry your crafts in the sun. The thicker the product, the longer it will take to dry. The color after hardening of the craft will not change.

The second drying option is the oven. For a couple of days, the products are dried in the fresh air, then the oven is heated up to 50 ˚С. It is necessary to cover the baking sheet with paper, lay out the crafts and dry, increasing the temperature to a maximum of 140 ˚С. Drying at 50 ° C takes about 3 hours, at 140 - half an hour. But you should not set the maximum temperature right away - the products may crack.

If the figures are still cracked, you can fix it with a mixture of PVA glue and ordinary flour, filling the cracks with a thin brush.

To understand if the product is dry, you just need to knock on it. A dull sound indicates that the figurine is still damp, and a ringing sound indicates that it is already finished.

How to arrange crafts

Finished figures are painted with paints. Better to take acrylic - they do not paint the skin, do not smudge and dry quickly. You can paint with gouache mixed with PVA glue, and even watercolors. Or you can just leave the products in their original form.

When sculpting, you can use various decorative elements: beads, buttons, threads, ribbons, small shells, cereals and pasta. If the product is cracked after staining, you can dry it in the fresh air, then eliminate the imperfections with sandpaper and paint again.

Varnish coating can protect the craft from defects. Also, this measure will prevent paint fading and preserve the aesthetics of things for a long time. Liquid varnish will make the craft blush and give it a natural shine. Thick will reliably protect against moisture, make the surface of the product matte or shiny. Spray varnish protects the surface from damage and makes it brighter.

Salt dough crafts

Now I invite you to see what kind of crafts you can do with your children. Photos of such crafts were sent to us by Anya Pavlovsky. Her daughter Svetlana, five years old, under the guidance of a teacher Tatiana Viktorovna Semenovs (MBDOU kindergarten №32, Izhevsk) made just such a beauty from salt dough.

Choose the recipe that suits you best, try and create with your children. After all, childhood is a wonderful time when any manifestation of imagination becomes a masterpiece! So let creativity be not only fun, but also safe!

Joyful creativity to you and your children!

Anna Kutyavina,
psychologist, storyteller,
site owner Fairy world

I thank Anya for such a creative theme for everyone. Agree, sometimes you start to do something with children like that and you get carried away too. So not only our children enjoy such activities, but we ourselves can also escape from the routine, immerse ourselves in creativity, relax our souls. And, of course, this is such a wonderful excuse to be with your children and chat with them.

Our distant ancestors decorated the surface of loaves with figured images of spikelets, berries, leaves before baking to attract good luck and receive blessings from their deities. Today we do this without any religious background, just for beauty.

In addition to decorating edible products, using a special composition of dough allows you to create very effective and beautiful decorative figures, pictures and flowers. In this case, the dough perfectly replaces more difficult and expensive materials, therefore it is ideal for small children. But this is such an exciting activity that respectable adults are also happy to do it.

Everyone can use salted dough for self-expression and relaxation, it is only important to know how to make a durable and plastic material, as well as to competently dry and paint the finished product.

The subtleties of making dough for crafts

The molding of products itself is no different from working with plasticine or other similar materials. The advantage of salted dough is that it is more plastic, less stains on hands and surrounding objects, gives more opportunities for complex work, and also keeps well after proper drying, becoming hard and durable.

1. The difficulty lies in how to prepare the correct dough that will not stick to hands and tools, will not crack and crumble. To do this, you need to use a few simple tips:
2. Do not use pancake flour for work - it is more sticky and the dough will turn out to be of a poor consistency.
3. Use only fine "Extra" salt. Coarse salt will create coarse crumbling dough due to grains when kneaded directly in dry form, and the dissolution of such salt in water will be too long in time. In addition, the rock salt may contain impurities that will stain the modeling dough, and the "Extra" salt is refined and very fine.

Diluting flour with ice water, you can get an excellent, plastic and very homogeneous dough.

With these simple tips, you can start working with your kids to create a variety of amazingly beautiful pieces. Salted dough is a simple, inexpensive and very accessible material for creativity, and children are just crazy about such a useful entertainment.

Used tools and materials

When we sculpt from salt dough, we need special tools to work. They are all found in our homes, in our kitchens or among office supplies, sewing materials and handicrafts.

Basic tools and materials for work:

• Rolling pin for rolling out the dough. If it is not available or the one available is too large for children's hands, you can find a replacement in the form of an ordinary glass bottle.
• Dough cutting knife. Children can be given a plastic knife from a set of colored plasticine.
• Board for rolling out dough and making products.
• Paints for coloring (watercolors, acrylics, gouache - any water-soluble dyes).
• Finishing varnishes (water based, best sprayed). Additionally, you can use spray varnishes "with special effects" - "snow", with sparkles, gold, silver or other metallized varnish.
• A set of brushes for coloring.
• A container with water.
• Forms for cookies.
• Various items for giving texture to the finished product - toothbrushes, combs, knitting needles, buttons, lace and much more.

For small children, special clothing should be provided, as they can get very dirty. Before work, stock up on a pack of dry and wet wipes - they are convenient not only to clean your hands, but also to get your brushes wet from excess paint. This will prevent the dyes from spreading over the finished item.

Three best recipes

To knead salty dough, you can use your own hands or entrust this process to modern technology - a mixer or kneader. With their help, you can get a particularly smooth and elastic dough.

In order for the finished product not to crumble, salt must first be poured with the required volume of water, and then thoroughly mixed with flour. It is important to mix the product well until it is completely homogeneous, otherwise, when drying, the finished item may crack or fall into separate pieces.

Basic recipe:

• A glass of flour (wheat or rye).
• A glass of finely ground salt of the "Extra" type.
• Half a glass of ice water.

Mix the ingredients and knead the dough until smooth. This recipe is great for delicate items such as flowers, leaves, ornamental plants, and more.

Plastic Soft Dough Recipe:

• Flour - one glass.
• Fine salt - one glass.
• The water is very cold - half a glass.
• Vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons.

Instead of oil, you can take glycerin, a fairly fatty cream, or cooking oil. The introduction of fats or oils into the recipe for salted dough makes its consistency more plastic and elastic, as well as avoids cracking of the product after drying. This option is especially suitable for "thick-walled" products that can crack if the dough is completely dry.

To work with fine details or many small elements, you will need to use an improved recipe for salt dough:

• 1.5 cups flour.
• 1 glass of salt.
• 0.5 cups of water.
• 2 - 3 tablespoons of PVA glue, wallpaper glue like "Methylan" or any other water-soluble glue.

Such dough perfectly holds its shape, it is possible to make small thin elements from it, and with definitely "stuffed" hands you can make things that are outwardly indistinguishable from good porcelain.

Any recipe for salty dough can be regarded as a basis, since you can endlessly modify it "for yourself", experimenting with various ingredients until the correct composition is obtained.

How to dry salty dough perfectly

The main difficulty for beginners is the technology of drying the finished product. Drying can be done in different ways:

• "Bake" in a preheated oven like a regular cookie, at a temperature ranging from 50 to 80 degrees (depending on the size and thickness of the product). The finished piece is placed on baking parchment paper and placed in a preheated oven for about an hour. The processing time depends on the dimensions of the product. Until the oven has cooled completely, the thing is not taken out of it.
• Drying in a cold oven, that is, the product is placed in a cold oven, heating is turned on and brought to the desired temperature. Everything else is exactly the same as in the previous paragraph.
• Salted doughs are best simply air-dried, although this is time-consuming. A well-dried craft becomes durable, hard and not subject to external influences. Regular drying is great for small items or delicate items.

Do not use electrical appliances or central heating batteries for drying. They dry the dough unevenly, which can cause cracking or deterioration of the thing if it is dry on one side only, has a dry surface and "damp insides".

Dyes and finishing materials used

When preparing salty dough, the dye can be injected directly into the product itself and get a material very similar to plasticine. But the difficulty in this case will be working with the material - you will have to connect separate colored parts, and for kids it is too difficult. Everyone loves to work with paints, so for children it is preferable to use the painting of a ready-made monochromatic thing.

The easiest way to work is to use water-soluble paints. Acrylic dyes are very good - they give a dense and uniform color, have a large color palette and are easy to use, dry quickly. But you can also use ordinary watercolor. It gives an excellent translucent layer, and paints can be layered with glazes to obtain special effects - volume, transition of tones, overflows and the acquisition of various textures. If there is a need to obtain opaque staining with watercolors, you can use a white primer. It can be played by white acrylic paint, gouache or tempera with the addition of PVA glue to hold it on the surface of the product.

For finishing, you can use voluminous paints, metallized dyes, beads of different sizes and shapes, buttons, rhinestones and other little things that do not deteriorate from high temperatures if you plan to dry in the oven.

Is it worth covering crafts with varnish

In principle, a finished piece of salt dough holds the paint very well, but if you plan to use this thing, for example, for games, or it is a chess piece, a decorative vase, a box, in a word, a thing that will suffer from constant touch, then it should be covered varnish. It will not only protect the finished products from external influences, but also give a beautiful glossy shine, which is necessary for many types of crafts.

The easiest way is to use the varnish in an aerosol, performing the treatment outdoors or in a well-ventilated area. If necessary, varnishing can be repeated several times, drying well each previous layer. To give a special decorative effect, you can use special sprays, for example, with the effect of snow or with sparkles.

Types of salted dough products

For kids or beginners, you need to use simpler forms and objects that they understand. You can start sculpting with traditional cats or dogs, fruits and berries, cars and other simple figures without numerous and complex details. Gradually, with an increase in the level of skill and the young sculptors themselves, the work can be complicated, moving on to the creation of figures, paintings and compositions.

The pinnacle of skill can be considered the creation of flowers from bioceramics, as salted dough is also called. Of course, even a baby can blind a simple chamomile, but only an "advanced" user can make a full-fledged bouquet of roses or a flowering branch of jasmine.

To learn how to work with salt dough, you need to follow the instructions step by step and not rush to tackle complex products.

Various panels and paintings from dough with salt

Making pictures from dough is not as difficult as it seems. At the first stages of creativity, it is worth using the hint in the form of a photograph of the future “work of art”. For example, let's say you want to create a beautiful autumn landscape. Find a beautiful photo with few small details and use it for inspiration.

• A piece of thin plywood is suitable as a basis for the picture, but if it is absent, you can also use thick cardboard. A rolled dough layer is applied to the surface of the base. It can be glued with any suitable adhesive.
• All details of the future painting are cut or sculpted from salt dough and superimposed on each other as they move away from the background of the painting. That is, the objects farthest from the viewer will be laid out on the base first. This method will allow you to get very accurate and expressive volumetric images.
• The finished picture is thoroughly dried and then painted with suitable paints. After the paints have dried, the painting is varnished and placed in a frame. The product is ready, it can be hung on the wall in the room or given to someone who can appreciate the creativity and talent of the artist.

If you use foil as the basis for the product, the dried and painted part can be easily removed from it and then transferred to any other material. It can be a dense fabric stretched over a frame, glass, plastic, even metal. Such flat and at the same time voluminous products can be used to decorate caskets, decorate children's furniture, boxes with various things, or use for identification, for example, lockers for things in a kindergarten dressing room.

Bioceramic figurines and dolls

There is nothing more interesting for kids than sculpting "little men". They really like "cartoon" characters, for example, fixies, Masha from a cartoon about a bear, heroes of comics and fairy tales. Salt dough can be used to make not only figurines and dolls, but also various houses, benches, trees, fountains - in a word, everything that imagination can suggest.

If you plan to make large enough figures, you should take care of the inner frame and stands for stable standing. As a support for small plastics, matches with the sulfur head removed, plastic and wooden toothpicks are suitable; for larger items, cocktail skewers or sticks for Asian cuisine may be required. Save wooden ice cream sticks - they can form the basis of many different products.

For stability, the figures need to be placed on a salted dough base in the shape of a circle or oval - this will ensure a flat plane.

If the figure is depicted in motion, it may be necessary to create a wire frame - it will help in sculpting and prevent the finished product from falling apart.

In addition to three-dimensional, three-dimensional figures of people and animals, you can create various fruits or vegetables from salt dough. They are beautiful both in themselves and as part of various compositions. For example, elegant fruits can be effectively laid out on a beautiful dish and decorated with them in the kitchen or dining room.

Flat figures can be cut with cookie cutters. Hearts can become original valentines, Christmas trees can decorate the New Year's table, flowers can be used to indicate places when seating guests at a holiday. Only imagination can limit the scope of application of various dough products.

Spectacular flowers and plants from mukosolka

The pinnacle of craftsmanship is delicate and graceful flowers from mukosolka, as the salted dough is also called. This work requires a lot of perseverance, talent and accuracy, so it is more suitable for adults and teenagers. Toddlers can successfully sculpt stylized flowers of simple shapes.

How to mold a complex volumetric flower, for example, a rose?

• You need to take a piece of dough and roll it into a drop-shaped core. The base of the drop is the bottom of the flower.
• Then you need to roll out the dough thinly and cut rose petals of different sizes and shapes from it.
• By carefully placing one petal after another on the teardrop-shaped base, you can get a blank rose. To make it look like a real flower, each petal must be carefully bent, giving it its natural shape and shape.
• At the end of the work, you need to create a flower cup with unfolded sepals, cut out some beautiful leaves with carved edges and connect all the parts together using wire and pieces of salt dough.
• Finished crafts are left to dry completely, and then painted in the selected colors.

According to this principle, you can create any flowers, whole bouquets, complex compositions and even imitation of plants in pots. The choice of the plot depends on the imagination and creativity of the creator. A good example would be a cute cactus that you should keep near your computer. A living plant, even one as resistant as a cactus, may not survive in an office environment, but a lovely prickly creature made of salt dough will perfectly survive any disasters.

How to deal with possible problems

In any work, mistakes may appear, or things may not go at all as expected. Even if you do everything in stages, taking into account all the nuances, product defects may appear. Basically, these are cracking and chipping of individual parts of the product.

Cracks in crafts appear due to the wrong composition of the dough, errors in drying, or the beginning of coloring the finished thing with incomplete drying of the base. If the cracks are small or the surface of the product is covered with a thin mesh of small cracks, they can be repaired.

To do this, you need to finally dry the thing, and then carefully sand the defects with sandpaper of varying degrees of abrasiveness. The surface can be brought to the ideal with velvet sandpaper. Then the surviving cracks can be filled with dough and salt slightly diluted with water. The procedure may have to be repeated several times if the cracks are very deep.

The lesson learned will teach that the basis of the future thing needs to be paid much more attention than even finishing - not only the appearance of the product itself, but also the very fact of its existence depends on its quality.

It happens that during the drying process, a part of the product simply falls off, especially often this happens with thin parts or fragile small fragments. Sometimes the elements of work break off during the scheduling with too intense exposure. In order to repair a toy with an even break-off line, you can use ordinary PVA glue. You need to apply layers of glue carefully so that ugly streaks do not form. The finished and dried thing must be treated with emery and re-painted and varnished.

If a product made of fresh dough breaks, it is enough to moisten the break points with water, press the individual parts against each other and wait for the setting. Decorate the dried work as planned.

You can try to restore a damaged figurine with the loss of individual elements by replacing the missing parts with pieces of fresh dough. Dry and fresh elements may not bond securely, so after the new parts dry, they may need to be glued for strength.

Give yourself and your children the pleasure of creativity, because working with the dough is easy and pleasant, and the cost of materials is scanty. The result of the work can exceed any expectations!

A wonderful activity for a child is sculpting from various materials. She perfectly develops the baby's fine motor skills. However, there is a minus in this type of needlework - a child may inadvertently eat the material. It follows that it is not recommended for babies to work with clay and plasticine, but salty dough is very suitable! It is easy to use and safe for children.

The dough can be used to create any figurines. Even one and a half-year-old toddlers under the supervision of their parents can create their first masterpieces from it, and for older children this activity can become a real hobby.

Try to show your imagination with your child and start making products of incredible beauty.

How to make salty dough

Absolutely everything can afford to cook this material, because the ingredients for it are available in every kitchen.

To make salty dough, you will need:

• 200g salt;
• 2 cups of flour;
• incomplete glass of water;
• 2 tablespoons of starch (if you are sculpting embossed figures).

Mix salt with flour and, if necessary, with starch, add water, stir, add one tablespoon of sunflower oil and start kneading. The dough should not crumble and stick to your hands - watch this, adjust the readiness of the dough with water and flour. A properly prepared dough should mold well. Wrap the finished dough in a plastic bag and refrigerate for a couple of hours. After that, you can start sculpting.

Drying salted dough products

The dough crafts you fashioned must be dried. This can be done in several ways.

You can just put the figurines in the room and leave them for a while. However, it is best to bake the crafts in the oven. It should be noted that sculpting is necessary in the same place where the figure will dry out. For this, it is ideal to use foil.

After finishing work on the craft, put it in a cold oven, set the temperature to fifty degrees for a start to avoid cracks. After thirty minutes, add the temperature to one hundred degrees. Dry for an average of one to two hours.

After drying, grind the craft with sandpaper.

How to paint salt dough crafts

Use acrylic-based paints to paint the figurines - they work best for this. Such paints dry instantly, have a rich color and do not smell at all. However, such paints are expensive. Therefore, you can use gouache or watercolors.

You can also color the dough while kneading by adding a few drops of food coloring or acrylic paint to it, but do it in moderation. Ordinary cocoa powder is also good for coloring the dough.

At the end of the work, the figurine is varnished. To do this, take a glossy or matte varnish with a water base.

We make salt dough with children

Owl

Take a spoon and separate two pieces of dough with it. This will be the torso and head of the owl. Make shapes of the required shape from these pieces and hold them together. Take a separate strip of dough and make small cuts on it - this will be the collar. Put it on the body and draw the wings with a knife. Use the remaining small pieces of dough to make the eye and beak. Dry the finished figurine and paint to your liking.

Cat

First, divide the dough into separate pieces. To make the torso, you will need the largest piece of dough to make the head - a little smaller, use the leftovers to make the tail, face, legs, eye and ears.

Roll out the dough into two circles, spread them on the cardboard. You will get the basis for the body and head of the cat. On a small circle, make a face from a separate piece of dough. We attach the eyes, ears, tail, paws. Note that each piece should be three to five millimeters thick.

Dry the resulting cat in the oven. After that, we paint it with black, and with white we shade the tail, antennae and eyes, paint the mouth with red.

Caterpillar

Separate small pieces from the salted dough, make balls of various sizes out of them. The head is a larger ball, the body is a few small balls. The number of circles will determine the size of your caterpillar.

Fasten the resulting parts to each other. For better adhesion, wet the contact points with water. You can either make a face for a caterpillar using sculpting or draw. For a mustache, simple matches are suitable.

Dry the finished caterpillar in the oven and paint to taste.

Hedgehog

First of all, take a ball - this will be the basis for the torso. It can be made of plastic, wood, or any other material. Wrap this ball in an even layer of dough so that there are no holes.

Do the same for the eyes and nose of the hedgehog using a dough, or use regular peppercorns.

Modeling figurines from salt dough or dough plastic is a very exciting activity that does not require special skills and special financial investments. Salt, water and flour are the main ingredients for this type of handicraft. The dough turns out to be soft and pliable, allowing even beginners to make wonderful crafts.

First, you can sculpt the simplest figures, then try to make more complicated products: small souvenirs, dolls, and even volumetric paintings. With a little experience and using creative imagination, you can make the most real works of art! In addition, by doing various crafts with your children, you will not only accustom them to creative work and develop fine motor skills, but also enjoy precious moments of communication.

Our master class and a few interesting ideas will help you complete simple crafts, and the necessary tips will make this creative process as fruitful and exciting as possible.

There are many recipes for modeling salt dough. Depending on the scale of the crafts, salt, flour and water are mixed in different proportions, and, among other things, additional ingredients are added to the dough: glycerin, glue, vegetable oil, starch and even hand cream. For beginners, the dough is recommended to be made according to the classic recipe. For this, flour and salt are mixed in equal proportions with the gradual addition of cold water. For example, 200 g of salt and 200 g of flour will require 125 g of water.

A tip for beginners!

1. Flour should be regular rye or wheat flour without adding baking powder and other components.
2. Salt is best taken fine-grained and by no means iodized. For better dissolution of salt, some needlewomen add a little water to it before mixing it with flour.
3. In order for the dough to be homogeneous, it is recommended to use a mixer.
4. To please the children already in the sculpting process and give the product color, food coloring can be added to the dough.
5. For better adhesion of individual parts of the craft, moisten them with a brush.
6. It is best to dry the product in an oven preheated to 50-60 degrees. Depending on the size of the craft, this procedure can take about 1 hour or more.

Master class for making mukosolki

In addition to flour, water and salt for the master class, you will need the following devices:

• modeling board;
• small rolling pin;
• small knife;
• a toothpick or ballpoint pen rod for small holes and patterns;
• container for water;
• brush and paints;
• varnish for coating.

Depending on what kind of figurines you will be making, you may need cookie cutters, beads, buttons, sheets of different shapes to create prints.

1. Roll out a layer half a centimeter thick from the finished salt dough.
2. Using the cookie cutters, cut out the required number of figurines. Use a toothpick or a pen rod to make holes in the figures in order to thread loops of ribbons through them. Decorate your crafts using beads, buttons, or tree leaves as prints.
3. Preheat the oven, line the bottom of the baking sheet with tracing paper or special baking paper.
4. Place the figurines on a baking sheet and bake in the oven until the dough hardens.
5. Place the mucosa on a flat surface and paint with your preferred colors.
6. To give the finished garments a shine, coat them with varnish.

Mukosolki can be done with a small knife, cutting out all sorts of elements. For example, you can make a pendant house for children on a Christmas tree or a funny cat with rope legs. A salty pancake can make a cute owl if you wrap its three edges and cut out the eyes with a nose.

The materials and devices required to create such a funny lamb will be needed the same as in the previous master class.

1. Knead the dough according to the classic recipe and refrigerate for 2 hours.
2. Shape the dough into 4 small balls for future lamb legs.
3. To create a torso, roll a sheet of foil into a lump and cover it with a pancake made of salted dough. Place the resulting ball on the legs.
4. Use the dough to make a lamb's head, horns, ears, and eyes. Use small balls of dough to shape the toy's fur.
5. Dry the lamb from the salted dough in the oven for 2.5-3 hours, and then let it cool for 30-40 minutes.
6. Color and varnish the toy.

Modeling of volumetric panels and paintings from salt dough

As a rule, salty dough is used for paintings according to the following recipe: one glass of salt and flour, 1 tbsp. water. It is best for beginners to use in a painting not a large number of salty figurines, decorating the rest of the space with decorative materials. Salted details are best done on foil, so that their reverse surface is perfectly flat and easily glued to the picture field.

Possible problems for beginners when making crafts from salt dough

1. After staining, the products are cracked.
2. Sand the craft, dry it in the fresh air and paint again.
3. Crafts are cracked due to the great thickness.
4. Remove excess dough from the back. If the figure is large, it must be periodically turned over when drying.
5. If a part breaks off from the toy, glue it with PVA glue or decorate it with a suitable decoration.

A wonderful entertainment and a useful kind of creative activity with a child is making crafts from salt dough. It also has another name - bioceramics. The main advantage of such creativity with children is unlimited opportunities for creativity and development of the child and, what is important, complete safety for health.

The sculpted figures are heated in the microwave or oven, but can also be air dried.

Salty dough: recipe

DIY dough has a huge plus - it is very easy and quick to prepare from familiar ingredients that are in every kitchen. Children's recipe for salt dough consists of only three ingredients: a glass of flour, a glass of salt, half a glass of water. Take a large bowl, mix the flour and salt in it, and then add a little water while kneading the tough dough.

After a few minutes of thorough mixing, the amazing creative material is ready!

What to make from salted dough? Master class number 1

Anything! Figures can be flat or three-dimensional, large or small, rough and more filigree. But for the first experiments with the test, we suggest using our master class. It will require:

• Salted modeling dough;
• Large cookie cutters for creativity or cutting out cookies;
• Rolling pin (you can take a plastic or wooden one);
• Plastic knife;
• Thick paints (gouache or acrylic) and a brush.

Roll out the salted dough on a table, about 1 cm thick. Cut out the figurines using molds or a knife.

Give them volume and small details by extruding the desired elements onto the surface.

The figures are ready. Transfer them to foil and a baking sheet and dry at low temperature in the oven for several hours until completely dry. The drying time for salt dough products depends on their thickness. Do not set the temperature too high, otherwise the crafts may burst. If you can't wait to continue working, wait for at least the outer layer to dry and start painting. And you can completely dry the product later, on a radiator or in the sun.

For color design of crafts, we suggest painting them with paints, but you can also use felt-tip pens. It is not recommended to use watercolor because it is very runny and the figures can get wet. If you only have watercolors at your disposal, first dilute them with a few drops of water until thick, and you can paint.

Dough figurines can be additionally decorated with glitter or other small decor. If the figurine is cracked or broken, it's okay! It can be glued with any sticky glue or glue gun.

Salted dough painting. Master class number 2

To create a flower from salt dough in a wicker basket, in addition to the main components, you will need a wooden frame without glass, colored cardboard or paper for the background of the picture, and a glue gun. Roll out the dough a little thinner: about 6-8 mm thick. Use a knife to cut out a trapezoidal basket (use whatever shape you and your child like). Flowers can be sculpted by hand or using molds. The basket handle is easy to make from two strips of dough, twisted in a spiral. Squeeze out small strokes on the surface of the dough with a plastic knife and a cap from a fountain pen - this will make the craft more "lively".

We put the whole craft together to see what the flower will look like in a basket of salt dough. But you need to dry the elements separately.

After drying, all elements need to be glued and painted (we used acrylic) and wait for the paints to dry completely. These steps can be interchanged, that is, first glue, then paint, or vice versa, as you prefer. Now take the frame, remove the glass from it, if there is one, and insert a rectangle of cardboard cut to fit the inside of the frame onto the backing.

It is advisable to dry the work in the air, and then, for the best preservation, varnish. You can use nail polish or water-based varnish. The painting "flower in a basket with a butterfly" from salt dough is ready!

We have given just a few examples of crafts from this simple and affordable material. But the children's modeling test has much more opportunities: with its help, you can endlessly learn, develop and create! Good luck!