Grandma's Gift

 We like to get creative here for birthday gifts, especially gifts for the grandmas. My husband likes to say, "It's not a good gift unless they cry." This gift didn't cause any tears, but it was pretty sentimental because grandma can hold her granddaughters' hands when she is at home. I feel pretty silly for not thinking about this project myself! As with most of my projects it was inspired by multiple pins on Pintrest. It's so easy and it keeps toddlers occupied for two days! Okay, not two days straight, but it does provide two activities on two separate days.

What you need: Salt dough, patience, oven, acrylic paints, paint brush.

Day 1: Unfortunately I didn't capture a photo of day one. But day one involves making salt dough (I googled a recipe). The real trick is to get the salt dough the consistency of play dough. You might have to add flour or water until you get it right. Warning: it took me a little while. Once I had it right, I pulled out two portions and rolled and shaped them into a circles. (I let my toddler play with the remaining salt dough. We had enough for her to make a couple cut outs while I shaped.) I pressed my little ones hands into the dough and baked the salt dough creations in the oven at 250 degrees for three hours. Now this is also tricky because the time might very, so check the molds periodically to make sure they don't crack or burn. When this process is complete the molds will look like the picture above.

Day 2: Painting! That's right. I dressed my toddler in her baking apron and let her go to town on her cut outs with water-based paint while I used the acrylic paint on the hand molds. We had a good time painting our projects together. My toddler liked it so much that she even painted the table, hence the water-based paints!

When we were done, I thought it was hard to see the print with just one color, so I emphasized the print with white paint. My mom loved them!