Today we have a DYI recipe for air-dry craft dough. This is a quick, simple, multi-use recipe for air-dry craft dough. This recipe used ingredients that you will likely already have in your kitchen. You can use this recipe to make Christmas ornaments, beads, cute critters, or make a “rock dig”. If you make it thick and solid, it will last to make ornaments and beads. If you make it thinner, it will break up under some impact.

We were in need of a V.B.S. craft for 4th and 5th-grade boys. The church’s theme was Archeology, “Digging into Jesus”. When we were asked for help with this we thought, how cute and then how hard can that be? Oddly, finding a way to allow boys to make a craft, break it open like a rock digger, and not cause anyone physical damage, is not as easy as it sounds. Real rock takes too much force to break and someone will likely lose a finger or at least get a black thumb for their trouble. You can buy “rocks” that have things inside but we did not want to buy them, that would be expensive. Also, we needed a specific item inside our “rock”.

So with some research, this recipe for DIY air dry craft dough was decided on as the best way. This is a quick and for the most part simple recipe. It does require cooking the mix so you will need a day or so to prep. If you are putting an item inside your rock, you will need to have that item on hand also.

You will need:

2 cups baking soda

2 cups corn starch

1 cup water

Your item to put into your rock.

Or not if you are making ornaments or beads.

It is as simple as mix the water, corn starch, and baking soda together.

Put into a pot or skillet as in our case.

Stir to get all well mixed.

Cook the mix on low and keep mixing to get the lumps and bumps out.

When the now dough starts coming away from the pan clean it is done.

Take care to put your dough into a container bowl but handle with care. It will be very hot and will need time to cool before you can handle it.

When it is cool enough to take in hand, knead the “dough” to make it smooth. It is the consistency of uncooperative pancake batter, so you will need to handle it with some vigor.

It takes a few minutes for the cooling and  just a bit longer for the dough to set.  You will need to work quickly if you need to make forms or cut it into shapes.  

In our case, we formed balls from our warm dough and then smashed them a bit flat. We then put a cross inside our dough and kind of make a free-form rock shape to cover the crosses.

Our crosses were hand-made by Popi. He used horseshoe nails and tack soldered them together to make little crosses.

The crosses were then wire wrapped for accent.  If you rememeber from some of our other talks, we make hand made jewelry. We often wire wrap jewelry, pendants and, the like.

A small bail was made at the top back of the cross to allow the now cross pendant to be hung as a pendant.

You can also see the spot welds that Popi made to assemble the cross.

Here is the finished product that the kids took home with them.

On a side note: the boys had a great time beating the free-form balls of dough with a wooden mallet to get their cross out. The removal process did make a bit of a mess and there were dough pieces everywhere but that was to be expected. Overall, this craft was a success.

If you are making Christmas ornaments or any kind of ornaments, follow the same idea. Knead your dough to smooth, roll out and cut your shapes. Layout your shapes and let them dry. Again, it takes several days to naturally dry. You can put your shapes in front of a fan or out in the sun to help dry faster. DO NOT cook in the over. 

Once dry, you can paint the ornaments and add a hanger to the back.  If you want to put a hole in the ornament, make sure to do it before the dough dries or you will need a drill. If you are wanting to glue a ribbon or string onto the back, a hot glue gun is a good way to do that. For the hot glue, wait until the ornaments are completely dry.

You can make beads the same way. Knead your dough till smooth and roll or cut your beads. Lay the beads out to cool.

We did not make any beads or critters with our dough, so we have no pics to share for those.

If you are making cute critters, it is best to knead your dough till smooth and shape your critter then lay them out to dry. If your critter will be made of more than one part, make the parts and lay them out to dry. Be sure the parts are totally dry before you try to paint them or put them together with whatever glue you are planning to use.

You will need to wait a couple of days to be sure your items are totally dried out. We worked on this project several weeks ahead so there was plenty of time for the drying. If you need your items more quickly, you can put a fan on them or put them in front of the air conditioner. But do note, it will take several days depending on how thick you make your ornaments, beads, or critters.

If you are making ornaments, beads, or critters you can now paint, decorate and seal them to make them permanent. There are several kinds of sealant you can use to keep these items around for a long time. Depending on what you are using them for, what paint you use, and what other things you use to decorate them, you will need to do some research on which sealant is best.

So there you are your own DIY air-dry dough. Hope you have a fun time making your desired crafts. This is a great recipe to DIY your own money-saving craft supplies. It will also make a great dough to use if you are making down-scaled models for future crafts made with other materials. This is a kind of a first draft dough if you are a sculptor or if you make cement lawn statues. I know, off-topic but just another way this recipe can be used, I am sure there are many other things this versatile recipe can do.

We hope you have enjoyed this craft talk and we hope you will try it out for yourself next time you need a quick dough.

Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.