Fairy Charms

During my week of Screen Free time or my attempt at screen free week I decided to do more crafts with Virginia. I was trying my best to not be on the computer during the day. So that meant I couldn't search Pinterest for all the crafts that I had pinned. 

But the library came to my rescue. I always forget that my libraries have whole sections of art and craft books. Virginia and I spent quite some time sitting in the art and craft section trying to find the best craft books to check out. One book that both me and Virginia loved was Sweet Pea's Garden Special Things to Make and Do. It was a whole craft book themed on Fairies. 

After our yard sale adventure Saturday and one new boo boo from the terrible sidewalk. We decided to take it easy inside and make the Marigold's Fairy Charms. This is a super easy recipe on how to make your own beads. 

Salt Dough Recipe:

2 cups of flour

1 cup of salt

1 cup lukewarm water

Mix the flour and salt together, then slowly add the water until it binds together to form a dough. Knead the dough until it is smooth, then cover it and leave it for half an hour before use.

Bake the finished models at 200 F until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. Small beads will take around 45 minutes. A larger pendant shape will take up to an hour and a half.

The book calls you to use a cookie cutter. We decided to use our heart shaped cookie cutter. To make the beads you roll the dough out into a snake and then cut the snake in pieces to roll in your hand to make a ball. Using a metal skewer you poke a hole in the ball and leave the beads on the skewer  to bake. 

Here is where our problems began. Well actually I think my problem began when I added to much water. I think our dough was just to soft. And I noticed the dough beads on the screwers didn't keep their shape well and again this could be because of our dough being too soft. I also believe I will make the cooking time longer. Our beads didn't finish cooking in the 45 minute time either.

We plan to do this craft again and make the adjustments and hopefully come out with some super cool beads that Virginia can paint herself. Then assemble into a pretty necklace and bracelet. I will say if you use this recipe that it does make a large amount of dough. Enough to make a lot of beads or to use as a sculpture. 

One cute project in the book was to make cute fairy items for a garden. Some examples they gave were little mushrooms for the fairies to sit on. There are tons of crafts in this book that are great for all ages and even for the big kids in your family or a kid at heart.