Our Salt Dough Suncatchers are inspired by our Stained Glass Cookies and Salt Dough Ornaments. When I saw the creative sun catchers at The Artful Parent I was curious if we could use the technique of melting plastic beads to create Salt Dough Suncatchers. With a little experimentation I am so excited to say it worked! Our Salt Dough Suncatchers are perfect year round hanging in your window or would be a wonderful addition to a Christmas Tree!
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE SALT DOUGH SUNCATCHERS
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2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
transparent pony beads
parchment paper
cookie tray
string or wire
2 cookie cutter (1 large, 1 small)
HOW TO MAKE SALT DOUGH SUNCATCHERS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Begin by mixing together the flour, salt and water to make the salt dough. Roll out dough and make shapes using large cookie cutter.
Use the smaller cookie cutter on the center of the cut out shapes. Remove the dough from the middle. Using a toothpick or skewer make a small hole in the top of the star.
Using a spatula careful lift each star onto a cookie tray covered with parchment paper. Set up a table with transparent pony beads (like these) and the tray of salt dough stars.
Now comes the fun part! Have your children fill the middle of the stars with the transparent pony beads. Try to make sure that there are no spaces left between the pony beads.
Loosely cover with tinfoil and bake at 375 degrees F for approximately 1- 1.5 hours or until the beads are melted together. Remember oven temperatures can vary it may take a longer or shorter amount of time. The salt dough will turn a light to dark brown color. Let cool completely. NOTE: If you are uncomfortable melting plastic in your home due to the fumes, readers have had success using an outdoor grill and it takes less time too!
At this point you can either string them as is (I used fishing wire) or you can paint the salt dough. I am loving how these look hanging in our windows, but I think they are also going to be happy additions to our Christmas Tree!
Sarah says
What did I do wrong, mine totally burned before the beads had completely melted?!?!
Meredith @ Homegrown Friends says
The dough will burn in order to get the suncatchers to melt (see the pic of mine). We painted ours.