Salt Dough Pumpkins


A few weeks ago Michelle made salt dough veggies with her children. They have a knit play mat that she made (and must share with everyone soon) and they wanted veggies to plant in their garden. We made corn and lettuce, celery and carrots, but we were all most delighted with the pumpkins. Below is the recipe we used. I made 8 pumpkins for the gnome house, three of which are jack-o-lanterns.
 
Basic Salt Dough Recipe
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
3/4 room temp water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
 
Mix all ingredients until smooth. Pinch off small pieces and roll into balls. Do not make them perfectly round. Think pumpkins in the field! Make them different sizes and shapes. They should be acorn to walnut sized.
 
Use a toothpick to press grooves into the pumpkins to make ribs. If you would like to make a jack-o-lantern, use the tip of the toothpick to press in the desired face.
 
Break off pieces of small twigs and push into the pumpkins to make a stem.
 
Bake at 200 F. for several hours until dried through. (When you turn a pumpkin over, the middle should appear dry.)
 
Paint when dried. You can use tempera paint or milk paint. To make milk paint adds a couple drops of orange food coloring to a couple 1/4 cup of milk. To make them look more natural add streaks of green to several pumpkins.
 
Note: We discovered at both Michelle’s house and mine that puppies and 2 year olds like to eat the finished pumpkins! Keep a close eye on the little ones if you have ‘em.
Submitted by Kimara on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 17:09
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November's Crafting Club Project

 
 

Just wanted to give everyone a sneak-peek at November's Crafting Club project. We took our inspiration from pioneer spoon dolls and created a Wizard Spoon Puppet. With the basic instructions you'll be able to make a whole story book of characters! Just drop the spoon into an empty pop bottle and you have the perfect stand! With just a little assistance your children will soon be creating their own characters!

Submitted by Kimara on Wed, 10/15/2008 - 23:11
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Halloween Preparations

The gnome's house is all ready for Halloween. They will be having a great party and the children will trick or treat with their woodland friends.

Over the next few days I will be sharing directions for making the banner, pumpkins, ghosts and our mummy gnome. Stop by often!

Submitted by Kimara on Tue, 10/14/2008 - 19:31
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Crocheted Bean Bags

I found a little time this weekend to finish up the bean bag project I've been working on. (Also got in some time to muck with the gnome house and came up with totally cute gnome trick or treaters but I'll get to them later in the week!) Anyway, as I mentioned before I am a beginning crocheter. I was messing around with making circles, and decided if I made a couple, then blanket stitched them together, they would make great, although rather flat, bean bags. They turned out cute and the kids love them. They've been flying around all weekend. Thinking about quilting a tic-tac board for them. Later I was thinking if you didn't sew them together they'd make great coasters. Hmmm, that has Christmas gift written all over them! I will spend some time this week writing down the instructions for all you crocheters. Remember, novice crocheter here! If I can make these, anyone can!

Submitted by Kimara on Mon, 10/13/2008 - 11:17
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Spoooooky Plans

This weekend the gnomes will be busy with their neighbors getting their homes ready for their Halloween celebration. Check back next week to check out some of their favorite decorations!

Submitted by Kimara on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 22:02
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