Sandy Salt Dough Ornaments

We have been heading to our little beach a lot lately and it's always been such a source of comfort for all of us. A place where we can go to clear our minds and reset ourselves. I was feeling a bit sentimental and wanted to create something with all of the treasures we are always collecting there so decided to make some sandy salt dough ornaments. It felt really good bringing a little bit of our special little beach home with us. I also like it when we have a bit of a purpose for our visit and on this day it was all about collecting  a bit of sand which I left up to Nixie to do and to collects shells and little stones with holes in them (which I already knew I wanted to use for beads).

When we got home we started making our dough. Nixie happened to choose a bunch of sand that had lots and lots of bits of dry seaweed in it so I had to spend quite a bit of time to sift it (next time I would try to pick sand that was cleaner). 

Ingredients

• 1 cup sand
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup salt
• 1/2 cup warm water

Instructions

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Slowly add in the water. You may need to add more salt/flour depending on how wet your sand is. You know it's done when it has a consistency you are happy with. Then create the ornaments you want to make, Nixie wanted to make necklaces to send to her friends and we also wanted to make a heart wall hanging. All you need to do is press the shells you want into the dough and make sure you put holes into them before they go into the oven if you want to thread string through. I baked them in the oven for about 3-3.5 hours at 130 degrees Celsius (flipping them over for the last 45 min).