Saltstone Zoo

Yesterday was a dark, stormy, rainy day. April Showers, for sure. Miss Bloom was at school and the little ones and I thought we should do an art project. Miss Belle has a book of art ideas that she and Grandpa checked out from the library. She wanted to paint animals on pebbles. Unfortunately, we didn't have any pebbles lying around and the weather was not pebble-finding friendly. So we decided to make our own! Stones made from salt dough.

 Little Boy Blue poured in the flour.

Miss Belle added the salt.

We mixed in some water and stirred up the dough.

The dough needed kneading.

Then we formed our stones.

Little guy was working the spoons.

All done!

Salt dough takes a long time to bake. We waited and waited...

And waited...

While we waited we decided to do a second "practice" run of the flourless peanut butter cookies I'm making for Passover.

Delicious!

Finally, our stones were finished.

After giving the stones time to cool, we started painting.

This guy was pretty pleased with himself.

A fine menagerie!

The artists with their work.

Want to make your own?

Saltstone Animals

1 Cup of Flour

1/2 Cup of Salt

1/2 Cup of Water

Mix, Knead, Shape your stones, beads, ornaments, etc. Bake at a low heat for 2-3 hours. If you're like me, you might have to turn up the heat occasionally to bake other things. Like cookies. This did not affect the quality of the stones.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

(adapted from this recipe)

2 Cups of Peanut Butter

2 Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 1/2 Cups of Sugar

1/2 Cup of Brown Sugar

Combine all ingredients and bake at 350° for 6-8 minutes.