Tutorial: Salt Dough Necklaces

Happy MIDDLE of the WEEK! Yahoooo! Last week of September…isn’t that JUST CRAZY! My goodness! The holidays are right around the corner!!
I am playing “catch up” this week on blogs and tutorials. I finally put together our salt dough necklace tutorial! I’m SUPER excited about it too! I loved this project and most importantly, Jaxon LOVED this project. He had a BLAST and when he sees my necklace he still tells me all about how he made it. Pretty SWEET! So let’s not delay any longer….here we GO!
Here is the recipe for the project:

A few side-notes: Do not allow your children to eat the dough. It’s VERY salty and not EDIBLE. Yucko!! Keep them from rubbing their eyes while working with the dough – it might burn little peepers! No one, including pets, should eat the dough yo!
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Just look at my cute helper!

This is such a great project because kiddos can help all the way through and participate in every aspect of the creation…and they LOVE it!

As the dough gets thicker, Mamma needs to help mix it thoroughly! I let Jaxon knead the dough too.

He really got into it.

Too SWEET! Loved it!!!

I let him pick out whatever shapes he wanted from our cookie-cutter collection. And then showed him how to push them into the dough to make the shapes. He LOVED it!


I so love those little fingies!


After we made our shapes I went through and poked a hole in each shape with a toothpick! And made a HUGE mistake…so learn from me!! Make your holes BIG…a lot BIGGER than you think you will need. You have to account for shrinkage when they dry out…and I didn’t. A teeny toothpick hole will not WORK! LOL!

I also laid out each shape to get an idea of where the hole should be so that each shape looked right on a necklace.

Another note…for the round beads…make sure each shape is completely pressed together without cracks…the cracks get BIGGER as it dries. LOL.
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After I baked our beads I set them out on a long piece of butcher paper and let Jax go to town painting them.

He loved this as much as he loved making the shapes. You don’t have to ask him twice to PAINT!
I used craft paint and glitter paint for our bead deco.



These are some of my most favorite pictures of Jaxon painting…so cute. And so shows how much he loves to paint and create!

And so just like his Mamma…get’s paint on everything during the process.
He LOVED squeezing the glitter paint on the beads too. So HILARIOUS!

This one is HYSTERICAL.

I did help him out a little bit. It was fun to sit down and paint with my lovebug. Precious memories!

Here’s our final product!

Another learning mistake – paint both sides of the flat beads so if they flip they are still PRETTY!
I forgot to on some like the big hearts..doh!
Now…here comes the funny part. Because I forgot to account for shrinkage…my Dad had to drill holes in each one for me with a pre-drill bit. LOL. This turned into an entire family project. My brother was here on leave before he went to Afghanistan and he even helped. We used fishing line to string the beads. And he helped me put them on!

I told him he was going to be a blog celebrity now. LOL.

It’s funny to me a fly swatter is in the picture…where the heck that came from I’m not sure. Ha ha ha ha ha.
Here’s the necklaces all together! LOVE THEM!

I had planned on keeping them and giving them as Christmas gifts. But I’m terrible at holding on to a gift…I need to give it AWAY ASAP! LOL!
My Mom and Sister-In-Law LOVED their gifts!!!

I kept one for me too!

They have really special meaning now! There are SO MANY things you could do with this stuff. I’m seeing a Christmas ornament tutorial in our near future for sure!!!
Your kiddos will love the project and you will have fun too!!! It’s a SUPER CHEAP and PRECIOUS project to make special family artwork.
Hope you make some soon!!!!
And don’t forget to send me your pictures…or post them on our Facebook page!!!
Love and Hugs!!!
XoXo