Salt Dough Play Cookies

The Winter That Just Won't End just keeps, well, not ending.

We are getting a little cabin fever up in here. And it is really hard to find time to sew new products when you've got crabby, whiny, clingy kids. I mean, I am typing this one handed as I've got one kid on the boob, and the other on that shoulder doing her best to provide continual distraction to the one on the boob.

Any who, I keep trying to find ways to combine what I need to do with things they'll be ok with doing.

For instance, I wanted to make some salt dough buttons to paint, so I whipped up a batch of salt dough and let The Kid play. She decided to make some cookies for her Lalaloopsies. The only small cookie cutters we had were Christmas themed, but you know what? She didn't care. And why should she? A cookie is a cookie, man.

I had read, somewhere in the internet wasteland, that you can microwave salt dough. So I did. And guess what? You can. BUT, and there's always a big but, it does not bake the same. My microwaved cookies came out wrinkly and even puffy, but they don't do that when you bake in the oven. I figured out on the third batch, that if you let them dry out just a little before microwaving, they don't puff so much.

And you should zap with caution. My last batch burned. The upside to that was it smelled just like burnt marshmallows. Which is a scent that I personally LOVE.

For our salt dough we used: 1 Cup flour+1/2 Cup salt+1/2 Cup water

Mix, adding water a little at a time until you get a non-sticky dough, then knead until smooth.

Shape, then place on microwave safe plate and zap until dry and hard.

I start with two minutes then add thirty seconds at a time. The first two batches took four minutes. The last burned after three. Ha.

We painted with Plaid craft paints. We used regular, glow in the dark and glitter paints.

The Lalaloopsies seem to be enjoying them, don't they?

If you wanted these to be super eco-friendly, you could use organic flour and omit the paint.

But then you run the risk of someone finding one in the wrong place, thinking it is a real cookie and breaking a tooth.

Or maybe that's just the crazies in my family...