Salt Dough Footprint

Little princess' foot print.

This was my daughter's footprint at 3 months old. Hers turned out so much better than her brothers' foot/hand prints that I did years ago. I think it's because I didn't have a rolling pin back then, and I didn't have a good bowl/cutter to cut the dough with back then.

Same recipe, though.

SALT DOUGH RECIPE:

1 cup flour

1 cup salt

1/2 cup warm water

• Combine flour and salt in a bowl. Mix well.
• Make a well in the middle of the bowl of dry ingredients, and pour in the water. Mix and knead into a dough. Add water until desired texture is reached. 1/2 cup for me was good enough.
• Roll the dough into a ball, and flatten with a rolling pin until the dough is about 1/4 inch thick.
• Make the print. (For me, it worked better when I made the footprint first before cutting the dough).
• You can use a clear bowl (to see if the print is in the middle of the cut you're about to make) or cookie cutters to cut the dough.
• Either air dry the masterpiece, or put in the oven at 200°F for 1 ½ to 2 hours or more, depending on your oven.
• When done, you can either leave the dough as is or paint it (some say acrylic is best).

Our oven back when I made her brothers' prints didn't warm enough at 200°F, whereas our oven now got a lot warmer at that temperature and "baked" the dough perfectly, so just keep watch of yours.

Be sure to make a hole before leaving the dough to air dry or "bake" if you want to hang it somewhere. My boys' prints went inside a shadow box frame (as shown below) - before they broke into pieces. I think I made their dough too thick. Hopefully our little girl's print will be just fine.

The boys' foot prints from years ago.

Christmas Crafts 2014

So I haven't posted for a while, and then I remembered the crafts I made this month (both by myself and with our kids). These are all ideas from Pinterest.

 Craft #1. Original source here.

Paper star

Craft #2. Original source here.

Paper wreath

Craft #3. Original source here.

Snowmen (and girl) foot prints

I was also considering making paper snowflakes with C, and a "snowman" made out of boxes, but decided we can do them next year. I think we did a pretty good job making at least 3 crafts. That is more than I ever did in the past Christmases we had.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

How was your Christmas?

Pinterest Find - Salt Dough Foot and Hand Print Keepsakes

I found several recipes for this awesome keepsake. It's so easy to mix and make. Unfortunately, neither of my two batches turned out well. I know it was just me. The first set (just my 12-month old's hand and foot prints) were fine pre-paint period. It baked all right. But the prints weren't deep enough so when I painted them with white acrylic paint, you could hardly see the prints.

That didn't stop me. I made another batch, this time I had enough for both kids. I got their prints done nicely and deep enough - thanks to my husband's help. He did the printing so much more efficiently with the second batch than I did with the first batch. I also tried a different recipe for the second batch. And the instruction said to either bake them or air dry them so I chose to air dry them - outside. Well the bottom remained a little doughy and soon enough, they started to crack. I couldn't be more disappointed.

But anyway, maybe you'll have a turn of luck unlike I did. Here are the pictures of the first batch and the second batch:

FIRST BATCH

I don't know why the picture turned out like this - like a negative side of the film. If you look to the left side of the saucer (top of the toes), the picture turns into how it looked like in real life (positive side of film kinda).

The recipe for this batch was:

1 cup plain flour

1 cup salt

1/2 cup warm water

Mix the flour and salt together and slowly add in water to get the right consistency - not too sticky and not to crumbly either. If it's too crumbly/dry, add some more water. If it's too sticky, add a little bit more flour. 

Use a shallow dish to use as a template for the dough. 

Bake at about 200ºF for 3 hours. Make sure the oven is not too hot or else the dough will rise and cook. If the bottom is still doughy, turn it over and bake it for another two hours. 

She said to use wax paper on the cookie sheet so the dough will not stick, but I think it's the culprit for my wet-bottom doughs that never dried (I used wax paper for both batches and both batches had wet bottoms that never dried). If you'd like to look at the main tutorial, here it is.

SECOND BATCH

J's hand and foot prints

C's hand and foot prints

 It's pretty obvious that C's feet was too deep. Anyway, my recipe for these was:

4 cups flour

1 cup water

1/2 cup warm water

I didn't use oil as the original recipe called for, and that's probably why these ones cracked. She also didn't mention about using wax paper underneath (since she used oil) and I did. 

Poke the doughs with straws prior to baking them or air drying them. 

She said you can put it in the oven at 150 degrees (didn't say if it was C or F) for an hour. Since I didn't know which temperature she used, I opted for the 24-hour air-drying - er... right. It became 72 hours actually since the bottoms were wet (up until now). Within the first 24 hours, I saw a crack in front of C's foot print. Three days after, all four prints had tons of cracks at the back. I almost cried. Maybe I should have used that oil and stopped using the wax paper! :(

Well, I'm going to try again next year on their birthdays and see if I get lucky with a decent recipe. 

Pinterest Finds - Breakfast Burritos

My husband made these for himself a couple of times already. He found this on my Pinterest board, Food - Breakfast and the direct link for the recipe he followed (if not exactly) for these burritos is here. You can practically put anything in there. I know my husband put ground beef in there, too. It only takes a little amount of time to make and lasts a lot of easy breakfasts. It's definitely worth a try!

Pinterest Finds

I have thought about putting my talents to work by being a nap time crafting mom (or letting the boys help me with the craft if it's easy enough). I love making different kinds of crafts. The next thing I want to learn is sewing and anything else with needles and threads (crocheting, for example). Sewing machines are beyond our budget now so that can wait a few more years or so. But for now, some random crafts will do.

I always don't have ideas on what to make, though. I'm glad I have Pinterest to help me create something for my family, for our home, or for other people. So I have come up with an idea to add this label, "Pinterest finds," here in my blog in hopes that it will push me to create more things that I find from Pinterest and post them here. I will also include my husband's creations. :P (Yes, he gets ideas from my boards every now and then).

We've done some before already. The first one was C's handprint ornament last Christmas.

Another idea Jesse got from Reddit (but which I also found on Pinterest) was using a used ketchup container to put a ready-made pancake mix in. I never got to take a picture but it was such a cool idea. It was fun! Here's an idea (I can't find the main post where this picture came from so I just took it from my "pin"):

Also coming up with this kind of label is Jesse's breakfast burritos. I can't remember anything else we've made or tips we've followed since I joined Pinterest but here's our next project that we want to do (yes, we already have the wood):

Click on the image to visit the website.

We've been meaning to make one like this but never really found a DIY version, and I found that one! We're not homeowners yet and we move A LOT so this one is the most practical to keep tabs of the kids' heights. And we can take it with us! YAY!!! Also one on my to-do list this week, actually hoping to do this tomorrow (for J's first birthday), is this salt dough foot print keepsake recipe:

Click on the image to visit the website.

Either this one or the other foot print keepsake recipes I have on my Keepsakes board. I'm excited just thinking about making these two keepsakes that we will cherish in the years to come! There are many other things I want to make from my Keepsakes board, and most of my other boards, but I will take it one thing at a time! :)