Salt dough crafts

Modeling is one of the simplest and most effective ways to spend time with your child in an interesting and useful way. Thanks to the work of the hands, fine motor skills develop, which positively affects the functioning of the brain, speech, memory and much more. The ability to choose the shape, color, size of the future craft develops the baby's imagination. Painstaking work has a positive effect on perseverance, and frequent modeling helps to calm active children and interest passive ones.

Modeling from plasticine or salt dough has a beneficial effect on the development of the child, therefore it is important to include this type of activity in the child's leisure time as often as possible. To protect children, it is better to choose not a store-bought composition for modeling, but to make it yourself. The main task in the preparation process is to choose the right ingredients and mix them in the right proportion.

The most suitable flour will be wheat, premium... An important point is the temperature of the water that is mixed with the flour. If you use a liquid with a temperature of 20-25 ℃, then you can achieve a plastic dough, if you take water with a temperature of 35-40 ℃, then the finished mass will be more rigid. To create a salty dough, you must use salt, flour, water, sometimes glue or starch is added to the composition.

Knowing how to correctly create dough for a particular craft, you can take on the work itself and master new crafts with your child.One of the simplest, but loved by children, is the asterisk.

The salt dough craft should be quite simple, especially for a small child, but at the same time interesting. To make an asterisk with your own hands, you need to prepare:

• components for creating a test;

• stack for cutting out the desired shape;

• food coloring or paint (if desired);

• a toothpick;

• decor (optional).

The sculpting process will look like this.

1. Combine water, salt and flour, knead a homogeneous and plastic dough.

2. Pinch off a piece of dough and roll it into a ball.

3. With the help of your palms, flatten it, increasing in diameter.

4. Put the workpiece on a flat surface, and with the help of a stack outline the contours of the future product, and then cut it out.

5. Lubricate the edges of the sprocket with water, and make them smoother and more accurate.

6. With the help of the stack, you can make recesses for the eyes and smiles. If you have a toothpick, it is possible to make dots on the product and decorate it.

7. Make a decor using the remains of the dough and paint, making additional elements of a different color.

8. The finished product must be dried, then varnished and wait until everything is completely dry.

The finished star can be colorless if no paint is added during kneading, or colored if a few drops of paint are added during dough preparation.

In addition to the work of fine motor skills, thanks to sculpting from dough, you can learn animals and insects with your baby, giving him the necessary knowledge about the world around him. The fauna of our planet is very rich and diverse, so you can always come up with an interesting, feasible and beautiful craft that a child can make at home. At 3-4 years old, children can make simple products that will not cause difficulties, but will give pleasure from the process and undeniable benefits. Children at the age of 5, 6 can also be given light work, but with a large number of additional elements, patterns, decor. At 8-9 years old, you can allow children to create using their skills and imagination.

The size of animals and insects can be any, as long as it is convenient for the child to make them at his workplace. Parents must control all stages of the child's creativity. There is a huge number of crafts for children that can be done at any age, the most interesting for them will be: caterpillar, hedgehog, owl, cat, pig and the like.

Children from a year and older can be offered to roll a caterpillar from salted dough. Such a craft will not be too difficult, but it will require certain skills and coordination of movements. To make such a craft, you must have:

• flour, salt, water;

• paint or food coloring (optional);

• knife:

• PVA glue;

• clear nail polish;

• decor elements (optional).

The process of creating a caterpillar looks like this:

1. knead the dough, adding all the necessary components to it, the finished mass can be both colored and colorless;

2. roll the dough sausage;

3. cut it into 6 identical pieces;

4. roll a ball from each piece;

5. glue 5 balls to each other, at the end add the head to the overall structure;

6. make a nose and eyes from the dough by adding paint of a different shade to it;

7. you can make not just a craft out of a caterpillar, but a keychain, for which a hole is made in the body with a toothpick, and the product is left to dry;

8. when the caterpillar is dry, it must be varnished and left to dry completely;

9. fasten the suspension element to the finished track.

An elephant will be a more complex craft from salt dough. It will be interesting for children to dazzle their baby elephant, making it an unusual color or with its own individual characteristics. In the process of working on the elephant, it is important to divide the prepared dough into several parts.The bulk will go to the torso, head, paws and ears, and the rest will go to auxiliary elements: the inner part of the ear, tusks, eyes, pupils, which will have their own color.

The process for creating an elephant will look like this.

1. Knead the dough, paint it in the desired colors.

2. Roll an oblong ball from which the body will be made.

3. Make 4 small sausages that will form the legs.

4. Blind a thinner sausage that will serve as a trunk.

5. Roll two balls, roll them into flat circles of a non-uniform shape. Carry out the same procedure with a dough of a different shade, and make the same circles, but with a smaller diameter. Put the smaller detail on the larger one, which will allow you to get the ears of an elephant.

6. It is necessary to mold a thin and short sausage from the remains of the main dough, which will be used as a tail.

7. Separately set aside pieces of a different color will be the basis for creating the eyelet.

8. Legs are glued to the existing body, then the trunk, ears, eyes, tail.

9. The finished product is dried.

10. The dried elephant is varnished and left to dry completely.

The appearance of an elephant can be completely different for each child. Thanks to the flight of imagination and the convenience of working with the dough, you can build the most unusual crafts.

One of the favorite crafts of children is a hedgehog. A small forest animal carrying apples and mushrooms on its back will not leave children indifferent.

To make such an animal, you need to prepare: dough, nail scissors, paints, varnish, PVA glue. The manufacturing process looks like this.

1. Make a dough and mold it into an oval with an oblong edge.

2. Roll two small balls and one larger ball of dough, which was previously painted black. Thanks to these details, the hedgehog will receive eyes and a nose.

3. To create needles, you must use nail scissors to cut the upper part of the calf. The edges of the needles can be folded back and sharpened by hand.

4. The finished craft must be dried.

5. When the hedgehog is dry, you can paint it with acrylics or gouache.

6. Once the paint is dry, you can varnish the finished product.

In addition to the hedgehog itself, you can make him a mushroom, a leaf or apples on the back to diversify the craft.

One of the favorite birds that children sculpt with pleasure is the owl.

To create such a craft, you need to prepare salted dough, take PVA glue, paints, a nail file, nail scissors, varnish. The work process looks like this:

1. mold a ball from the prepared dough, flatten it, thus making the body;

2. roll up small balls, and give them a conical shape, glue them with PVA glue to the main workpiece, thus making eyes;

3. draw the iris with a file, you can make rays around the eyes by pressing the tip of the nail file on the area near the eye;

4. with the help of nail scissors, it is necessary to make cuts along the entire surface of the owl's body, forming feathers;

5. mold thin sausages from the remaining dough, from which to make legs;

6. glue all the details on a wooden board, and paint the finished product with paints;

7. when the craft is dry, it needs to be varnished and dried completely.

An owl can be folded or spread its wings, with or without some kind of hairstyle, the child himself chooses the most convenient path for himself.

One of the favorite animals for children is a cat, therefore they will be especially attentive to its creation.

For crafts, you need to prepare salted dough, a knife, a rolling pin, paints, varnish, PVA glue. The creation process might look like this:

1. draw a layout of the future cat on a sheet of paper, cut it out;

2. roll out the layer from the dough, level it with a rolling pin;

3. place a drawing on the dough, and draw a knife over it, cutting out the same product;

4. the workpiece must be dried;

5. if desired, it can be painted to make the result as beautiful as possible, the surface must be leveled with sandpaper;

6. on a flat workpiece, patterns are outlined with a pencil, which are painted in any colors;

7. when the product is dry, it needs to be varnished.

Children who love dogs will be happy to make a craft in the form of a dachshund. The principle of its creation and the necessary products will be the same as when working on a cat. The creation process looks like this:

1. a sketch of the future dachshund is created on a sheet of paper, after which it is cut out;

2. the dough is rolled out in a thin layer;

3. a sketch is laid out on top of the dough, according to which the future craft is cut;

4. to give the dachshund a relief, small balls are molded onto the body and ear, which are superimposed on top of the main product, and carefully distributed;

5. when the craft is ready, it needs to be allowed to dry, and then painted and varnished.

Such a craft can be made in the form of a keychain, if you initially make a hole in the workpiece for attaching a lace or chain.

Quite simple, but the pig's craft will be funny, which can be done in different techniques.

To make a piggy pendant, you need to prepare: dough, knife, paint, stack, toothpick, PVA glue. The process of creating such a craft looks like this:

1. roll two balls of different sizes from the prepared dough, flatten both, the larger one will act as a head, the smaller one - a patch;

2. use a toothpick to make two holes in the nose;

3. from the remnants of the dough to blind the ears of a triangular shape, attach them to the head;

4. blind two small legs that will be attached to a rope;

5. make one hole for the rope on top of the product, and two for the legs at the bottom;

6. on the main part, you can make handles, create decorative elements: a heart, a flower or another;

7. the workpieces must be dried and then painted;

8. after drying, all elements are varnished.

In addition to animals and insects, there are many more options for what you can do with salt dough with children. For beginners, it is worth showing a master class, explaining and telling what needs to be done and in what sequence. Step-by-step instructions are especially important for children so that they do not confuse anything and get the desired result of their work.

It is important to explain to the child how long it takes to dry the craft so that he does not take it to play ahead of time... When working with children, it is important to do only part of the work, leaving the child with a significant array of tasks that he will have to cope with. To quickly learn how to sculpt from salt dough, it is necessary to gradually complicate the crafts, giving immediately easy and simple ones, and then more complex ones. Working with children, you can make not only toys, but also something useful for the home, for example:

• saucer;

• a cup;

• a plate;

• hot stand and much more.

The correct approach, interesting tasks, will allow children of any age to sculpt any crafts from the dough with interest.

In addition to crafts from the world of animals and things that can be useful in everyday life, you can offer your child a lot of other options:

• mushrooms

• bread

• loaf

• apples

• cake

• vegetables

• fruits

Such crafts for kids will be understandable and interesting. Products can be both flat and voluminous, both large and small, depending on the wishes of the child himself, his skills and the amount of dough for modeling. It is necessary to increase the complexity of the work in stages, giving feasible tasks.

Salted dough makes baked goods very beautifully, which can be confused with real ones. If you add seed or poppy decorations to bread or buns, they will be an exact copy of real products.

To prevent salt dough from crumbling and deformed, it must be properly dried. For flat and small products, no additional heat is required, the dough dries on its own. To prevent the figurine from cracking, you do not need to dry it in the open sun, this will negatively affect its integrity.

If the figurine is bulky or large, then to dry completely, you will need to bake it in the oven for 3-4 hours. It is important to set the minimum temperature so that the product does not burn out, but gradually bakes and dries out. Compliance with such standards allows you to get a beautiful and durable craft.

For more on salt dough crafts, see the video below.