Our distant ancestors decorated the surface of loaves with figurative images of spikelets, berries, and leaves before baking to attract good luck and receive blessings from their deities. Today we do this without any religious background, just for beauty.

In addition to decorating edible products, the use of a dough of a special composition allows you to create very impressive and beautiful decorative figures, pictures and flowers. In this case, the dough perfectly replaces more difficult and expensive materials, so it is ideal for young children. But this is such an exciting activity that even respectable adults enjoy doing it.

Anyone can use salt dough for self-expression and relaxation; it is only important to know how to make a durable and flexible material, as well as to properly dry and paint the finished product.

Subtleties of preparing dough for crafts

The modeling of products itself is no different from working with plasticine or other similar materials. The advantage of salted dough is that it is more flexible, less dirty on hands and surrounding objects, provides more opportunities for complex work, and is also perfectly preserved after proper drying, becoming hard and durable.

1. The difficulty is how to prepare the right dough that will not stick to your hands and tools, and will not crack or crumble. To do this, you need to use a few simple tips:
2. Do not use pancake flour for work - it is more sticky and the dough will turn out to be of poor consistency.
3. Use only “Extra” fine salt. Coarse salt will create a rough crumbly dough due to grains when kneading directly in dry form, and dissolving such salt in water will take too long. In addition, rock salt can contain impurities that will stain the play dough, but “Extra” salt is purified and very fine.

By diluting the flour with ice water, you can get an excellent, plastic and very homogeneous dough.

Using these simple tips, you can start working with your children to create a variety of amazingly beautiful products. Salt dough is a simple, inexpensive and very accessible material for creativity, and children are simply crazy about such useful entertainment.

Tools and materials used

When we sculpt from salt dough, we need special tools to work. All of them are available in our homes, in kitchens or among office supplies, materials for sewing and handicrafts.

Basic tools and materials for work:

• Rolling pin for rolling out dough. If it is not there or the existing one is too large for children’s hands, you can find a replacement in the form of an ordinary glass bottle.
• Knife for cutting dough. Children can be given a plastic knife from a set of colored plasticine.
• Board for rolling out dough and making products.
• Paints for coloring (watercolor, acrylic, gouache - any water-soluble dyes).
• Finishing varnishes (water-based, best in aerosols). Additionally, you can use spray varnishes “with special effects” - “snow”, with sparkles, gold, silver or other metallic varnish.
• Set of brushes for coloring.
• Container with water.
• Cookie molds.
• A variety of items to add texture to the finished product - toothbrushes, combs, knitting needles, buttons, lace and much more.

For small children, it is worth providing special clothing, as they can get very dirty. Before work, stock up on a pack of dry and wet wipes - they are convenient not only to clean your hands, but also to blot your brushes from excess paint. This will prevent the dyes from spreading over the finished item.

Three best recipes

To knead the salt dough, you can use your own hands or entrust this process to modern technology - a mixer or dough mixer. With their help you can obtain a particularly smooth and elastic dough.

To ensure that the finished product does not crumble, you must first add the required volume of water to the salt, and then mix it thoroughly with the flour. It is important to mix the product well until completely homogeneous, otherwise, when drying, the finished item may crack or fall apart into separate pieces.

Basic recipe:

• A glass of flour (wheat or rye).
• A glass of finely ground salt, “Extra” type.
• Half a glass of ice water.

Mix the ingredients and knead the dough until smooth. This recipe is great for crafts with delicate details: flowers, leaves, ornamental plants, and so on.

Recipe for plastic soft dough:

• Flour - one glass.
• Fine salt - one glass.
• The water is very cold - half a glass.
• Vegetable oil - 2 tablespoons.

Instead of oil, you can take glycerin, a fairly rich cream or cooking oil. The introduction of fats or oils into a salt dough recipe allows you to make its consistency more plastic and elastic, and also avoid cracking of the product after drying. This option is especially suitable for “thick-walled” products that may crack if the dough is completely dry.

To work with thin parts or many small elements, you will need to use an improved salt dough recipe:

• 1.5 cups flour.
• 1 glass of salt.
• 0.5 glasses of water.
• 2 - 3 tablespoons of PVA glue, Methylane wallpaper glue or any other water-soluble glue.

This dough holds its shape perfectly, you can make small thin elements from it, and with definitely “stuffed” hands you can make things that are outwardly indistinguishable from good porcelain.

Any recipe for salt dough can be regarded as a basis, since you can endlessly modify it “to suit yourself”, experimenting with various ingredients until you get the correct composition.

How to perfectly dry salt dough

The main difficulty for beginners is the technology of drying the finished product. Drying can be done in different ways:

• “Bake” in a heated oven like regular cookies, at a temperature ranging from 50 to 80 degrees (depending on the size and thickness of the product). The finished item is placed on parchment paper for baking and placed in a preheated oven for about an hour. The duration of processing depends on the dimensions of the product. Do not remove the item from the oven until the oven has cooled completely.
• Drying in a cold oven, that is, the product is placed in a cold oven, the heat is turned on and brought to the desired temperature. Everything else is exactly the same as in the previous paragraph.
• It is best to simply air dry products made from dough with salt, although this takes a lot of time. A well-dried craft becomes durable, hard and not subject to external influences. Regular drying is great for small items or items with delicate parts.

Do not use electrical appliances or a central heating radiator for drying. They dry the dough unevenly, which can cause the item to crack or spoil if it is only dry on one side, has a dry surface and has “damp insides.”

Dyes and finishing materials used

When preparing salt dough, the dye can be introduced directly into the product itself and obtain a material very similar to plasticine. But the difficulty in this case will be working with the material - you will have to connect individual colored parts, and this is too difficult for kids. Everyone loves to work with paints, so for children it is preferable to paint a ready-made monochromatic item.

The easiest way to work is to use water-soluble paints. Acrylic dyes are very good - they give a dense and uniform color, have a large color palette, are easy to use, and dry quickly. But you can also use regular watercolors. It gives an excellent translucent layer, and paints can be layered with glazes to obtain special effects - volume, tone transitions, tints and different textures. If there is a need to obtain an opaque color using watercolors, you can use a white primer. Its role can be white acrylic paint, gouache or tempera with the addition of PVA glue to hold it on the surface of the product.

For finishing, you can use three-dimensional paints, metallic dyes, beads of different sizes and shapes, buttons, rhinestones and other little things that do not deteriorate from high temperatures if you plan to dry them in the oven.

Is it worth varnishing crafts?

In principle, a finished craft made from salt dough holds paint very well, but if you plan to use this thing, for example, for games, or it is a chess piece, a decorative vase, a box, in short, a thing that will suffer from constant touching, then it should be coated varnish. It will not only protect finished products from external influences, but will also give a beautiful glossy shine, which is necessary for many types of crafts.

The easiest way is to use varnish in an aerosol, carrying out the treatment outdoors or in a well-ventilated area. If necessary, varnishing can be repeated several times, thoroughly drying each previous layer. To make it especially decorative, you can use special sprays, for example, with a snow effect or with glitter.

Types of salt dough products

For kids or beginners, you need to use simpler shapes and objects that are understandable to them. You can start sculpting with traditional cats or dogs, fruits and berries, cars and other simple figures without numerous and complex details. Gradually, with the growth of the level of skill and the young sculptors themselves, the work can become more complicated, moving on to the creation of figures, paintings and compositions.

The pinnacle of craftsmanship can be considered the creation of flowers from bioceramics, as salt dough is also called. Of course, even a child can make a simple chamomile, but only an “advanced” user can make a full-fledged bouquet of roses or a flowering branch of jasmine.

To learn how to work with salt dough, you need to follow the instructions step by step and not rush into complex products.

Various panels and paintings made from dough with salt

Creating pictures from dough is not as difficult as it seems. At the first stages of creativity, it is worth using a hint in the form of a photograph of the future “work of art.” For example, let's say you want to create a beautiful autumn landscape. Find a beautiful photo with a few small details and use it for inspiration.

• A piece of thin plywood is suitable as a basis for the picture, but if it is unavailable, you can also use thick cardboard. A rolled out layer of dough is placed on the surface of the base. It can be glued with any suitable glue.
• All the details of the future painting are cut out or molded from salt dough and superimposed on each other as they move away from the background of the painting. That is, the objects furthest from the viewer will be laid out on the base first. This method will allow you to obtain very neat and expressive three-dimensional images.
• The finished painting is thoroughly dried and then painted with suitable paints. After the paints have dried, the painting is varnished and placed in a frame. The product is ready, you can hang it on the wall in your room or give it to someone who can appreciate the creativity and talent of the performer.

If you use foil as a base for the product, the dried and painted part can be easily removed from it and then transferred to any other material. It can be thick fabric stretched over a frame, glass, plastic, even metal. Such flat and at the same time voluminous products can be used to decorate caskets, decorate children's furniture, boxes with various things, or be used for identification, for example, lockers for things in a kindergarten locker room.

Bioceramic figurines and dolls

There is nothing more interesting for kids than sculpting “people”. They really like “cartoon” characters, for example, fixies, Masha from the cartoon about the bear, heroes of comics and fairy tales. From salt dough you can make not only figurines and dolls, but also various houses, benches, trees, fountains - in a word, everything that your imagination can suggest.

If you plan to make fairly large figures, you should take care of the internal frame and stands for stable standing. Matches with the sulfur head removed, plastic and wooden toothpicks are suitable as supports for small plastic pieces; for larger products, cocktail skewers or chopsticks for Asian cuisine may be required. Save the wooden popsicle sticks - they can become the basis for many different products.

For stability, the figures should be placed on a base made of salt dough in the shape of a circle or oval - this will ensure a flat plane.

If the figure is depicted in motion, it may be necessary to create a wire frame - it will help in sculpting and will not allow the finished product to crumble.

In addition to three-dimensional, three-dimensional figures of people and animals, you can create various fruits and vegetables from salt dough. They are beautiful both on their own and as part of various compositions. For example, elegant fruits can be effectively laid out on a beautiful dish and used to decorate the kitchen or dining room.

Flat shapes can be cut out using cookie cutters. Hearts can become original valentines, Christmas trees can decorate the New Year's table, flowers can be used to designate places when seating guests at a holiday. Only imagination can limit the scope of application of various dough products.

Spectacular flowers and plants from mucosol

The pinnacle of craftsmanship is the thin and graceful flowers made from flour salt, as salt dough is also called. This work requires great perseverance, talent and accuracy, so it is more suitable for adults and teenagers. Kids can successfully sculpt stylized flowers of simple shapes.

How to make a complex three-dimensional flower, for example, a rose?

• You need to take a piece of dough and roll it into a drop-shaped core. The base of the drop is the bottom of the flower.
• Then you need to roll out the dough thinly and cut out rose petals of different sizes and shapes from it.
• By carefully placing one petal after another on the teardrop-shaped base, you can get a rose blank. To make it look like a real flower, each petal must be carefully bent, giving it a natural shape and outline.
• To complete the work, you need to create a flower cup with the sepals turned away, cut out some beautiful leaves with carved edges and connect all the parts together using wire and pieces of salt dough.
• The finished crafts are left to dry completely, and then painted in the chosen colors.

Using this principle, you can create any flowers, entire bouquets, complex compositions, and even imitations of plants in pots. The choice of plot depends on the imagination and creativity of the creator. A good example would be a cute cactus that should be kept near the computer. A living plant, even one as resilient as a cactus, may not survive in an office environment, but a lovely, prickly creature made from salt dough will survive any disaster perfectly.

How to deal with possible problems

In any work, errors may occur, or things may not go at all as expected. Even if you do everything step by step, taking into account all the nuances, product defects may appear. This mainly involves cracking and chipping of individual parts of the product.

Cracks in crafts appear due to incorrect composition of the dough, errors in drying, or the start of painting the finished item when the base is not completely dry. If the cracks are small or the surface of the product is covered with a thin network of small cracks, they can be repaired.

To do this, you need to completely dry the item, and then carefully sand the defects using sandpaper of varying degrees of abrasiveness. You can bring the surface to perfection with “velvet” sandpaper. Then the remaining cracks can be filled with putty with a dough slightly diluted with water and salt. The procedure may have to be repeated several times if the cracks are very deep.

The lesson learned will teach that the basis of a future item needs to be given much more attention than even the finishing - not only the appearance of the product itself, but also the very fact of its existence depends on its quality.

It happens that during the drying process part of the product simply falls off, this especially often happens with thin parts or fragile small fragments. Sometimes elements of the work break off during painting when the impact is too intense. In order to repair a toy with a straight break line, you can use regular PVA glue. Layers of glue must be applied carefully to avoid unsightly streaks. The finished and dried item must be sanded and re-painted and varnished.

If a product made from fresh dough breaks, just moisten the broken areas thoroughly with water, press the individual parts together and wait for them to set. Decorate the dried work as planned.

You can try to restore a damaged figurine with the loss of individual elements by replacing the missing parts with pieces of fresh dough. Dry and fresh pieces may not connect securely, so after the new pieces dry, they may need to be glued together for strength.

Give yourself and your children the pleasure of creativity, because working with dough is easy and enjoyable, and the cost of materials is minimal. The result of the work can exceed any expectations!

An alternative to plasticine is salt dough, which you can prepare yourself at home. Crafts made from this material can delight the eye for years. But this can only be achieved if certain rules for drying dough are observed. There are several drying methods, and each of them has its own subtleties. Today we will examine in detail the topic of how to properly dry crafts made from salt dough.

Modeling dough is made from wheat flour, fine table salt and water. The amount of ingredients is taken in the following proportion:

• flour – 1 part;
• salt – 1 part;
• water – ½ part.

All ingredients are thoroughly mixed. To make the dough more durable and not break when drying, you can add a tablespoon of PVA glue.

Watch a video from Elena Puzanova on how to prepare salt dough for crafts

How to dry dough crafts

The dough should be sculpted immediately on the surfaces on which they will dry. After the work on forming the products is completed, you can decide on the drying method.

The natural way is in the air

This drying method is the most energy-efficient, but also the longest in time. The place should be chosen dry and warm. If you place the craft on a windowsill in direct sunlight, the drying time can be reduced.

Drying time also depends on the product itself. The thicker the layer of dough in the craft, the longer it will take to dry completely. On average, it takes 24 hours for 1 millimeter of dough to dry naturally.

In addition to the duration of the procedure, the disadvantage of this method is that in places where the product comes into contact with the surface on which they are located, depressions can form.

On the heating radiator

This drying method can only be used during the heating season, when the radiators in houses are warm. To prevent the product from deforming, it must be laid out on a flat surface covered with foil or polyethylene, and then this structure must be moved to the radiator.

In an electric oven

The dough products are placed on a baking sheet sprinkled with flour. At the same time, its color is important. A light baking sheet reflects heat, which significantly increases the drying time, while a container made of dark material, on the contrary, dries the products much faster. This fact requires adjustment of the temperature regime. This article will provide values ​​for drying crafts on a light baking sheet. If you are using dark-colored dishes, set the oven temperature 25 degrees lower.

Drying stages:

• at a temperature of 50 degrees – 1 hour;
• at a temperature of 75 degrees – 1 – 2 hours;
• at a temperature of 100 – 125 degrees – 1 hour;
• at a temperature of 150 degrees – 30 minutes.

Initially, the product must be placed in a cold oven.

In a gas oven

Drying in a gas oven is twice as fast as in an electric oven.

The gas is set to minimum power, and the door is used to regulate the temperature.

Drying stages:

• door half open – drying time 1 hour;
• the door is open a quarter – exposure time is 1 hour;
• door completely closed – 1 hour.

If you immediately start drying the craft with the door closed, bubbles will appear on its surface that will be impossible to get rid of.

Watch the video from the channel “skalka TV” - Modeling from salt dough. Drying and decorating salt dough products

Combined method

Mixed drying is suitable for large volume products. The craft is first kept at room temperature for a couple of days, and then dried in the oven. The temperature is initially set at 50 degrees, and then gradually increased to 150.

In the microwave

You cannot dry salt dough products in the microwave!

How to determine product readiness

The readiness of the product is indicated by the sound made when tapping with a finger. If it is loud, then you can stop drying, but if it is deaf, then the craft needs to continue drying for some more time.

Rules for browning products

Browning is carried out in the oven at a heating temperature of 200 degrees. In this case, the craft must be completely dried. The frying process should be under your constant control and, as soon as the craft acquires a golden hue, complete the procedure.

To ensure that a salt dough product can be stored for a long time, its surface after painting is treated with a colorless varnish, which can be glossy or matte.

HOW TO DRY A CRAFT FROM SALT DOUGH :)

Drying is a very important stage in the manufacture of salt dough products. Imagine: you conceived and created something wonderful from it. And suddenly - as a result of hasty or incorrect firing - the product cracked and everything went down the drain! This is truly a big disappointment!

Outdoors at room temperature

You can dry the craft outdoors in a dry place. The thicker the product, the longer it will take. But this method is the most economical.

However, keep in mind that air drying will create indentations on the surface of the product that is in contact with the table.

When air drying, moisture evaporates slowly, so it takes 1 day of drying to dry every millimeter of product thickness.

In summer, use the heat of the sun to dry: place the product ready for drying in a sunny place.

Drying time in an electric stove oven

1 hour - at t 50°C
1-2 hours - at 75°C
1 hour - at t 100-125°C
0.5 hours - at t 150°C

Larger pieces will require more time to dry.

You can also use another calculation formula: drying time in an electric stove oven on a white baking sheet is 1 hour for every 0.5 cm of thickness at a temperature of 75°C. Further, regardless of thickness:

1/2 hour at 100°C
1/2 hour at 125°C
1 hour at 150 °C
Browning - at 200°C strictly under supervision!
Note. The black baking tray heats up more, and at all stages of drying the temperature is reduced by 25°C.

It is difficult to calculate exactly the time it will take to dry crafts in the oven. All ovens are slightly different. Therefore, to reduce the frustration of ruined work, make several samples, for example, make cakes of different thicknesses and dry them in your oven, changing the temperature.

After drying the salt dough figures in the oven, cool them. While the items are hot, they are very fragile, so handle them with care.

When drying in the oven, first turn on only the top heat and dry the product on it until its surface begins to brown. After this, the product is no longer deformed. Then place the baking sheet on the middle rack of the oven. If you want to give the product a beige tint, use the top heat a little longer.

If a slight bulge appears on the product or the product bulges slightly, the temperature in the oven is too high, in which case cracks may form on the back of the product.

In the oven (gas or electric stove)

Drying a product in a gas stove takes half as much time as in an electric one.

Example. A wreath in an electric stove is dried until ready in 6 hours, but drying the same wreath in a gas stove takes only 3 hours! By slightly opening the oven door, you can adjust the temperature in the gas stove (on the lowest heat):

1 hour - door half open
1 hour - for a quarter
1 hour - door closed
To brown the product until brown, add gas and constantly monitor the product so as not to burn it.

To dry the finished product, carefully, using a wide knife or spatula, transfer it from the work table to a baking sheet sprinkled with flour, being careful not to damage it during transfer.

Dry the craft for two days, first in the open air, then in the oven at a temperature of 50°C, gradually increasing the temperature, but not higher than 150°C. If the temperature is too high, the product may swell, sometimes even cracks appear. Swollen crafts cannot be fixed, and cracks are easy to cover up. To do this, dilute a little flour with water, add PVA glue, mix well and apply this mixture to the crack, then rub the mixture into it with a stick or your finger.

The product should not remain damp. Its readiness is determined by its sound. By tapping the finished product with your finger, you will hear a ringing sound. If the sound is dull, the product needs to be dried.

For large items, you can use combined drying: first for several days in the air, then in the oven.

Note. If you start drying the product with the oven door closed, bubbles will form on the surface.

On the heating battery

This method is very convenient to use in winter, when the central heating radiators are well heated. Place the craft on foil or cloth and leave it on the radiator until completely dry.

Combined drying

First, the product is air-dried for several days, and then dried in the oven. This method is especially suitable for bulky items, such as wreaths.

Hot air drying in the grill

Salt dough products can also be dried and fired with hot air in special ovens. Electricity consumption in this case will be insignificant, since several baking sheets can be loaded at once. The grill is also suitable for drying dough products, especially since it will require less energy than an electric stove.

Microwave

The microwave oven is not suitable for drying salt dough products.

How to determine if items are completely dry

Tap the product with your index finger. If the sound is muffled, it means that the inside of the model is damp and it needs to be left in the oven for a while. If the sound is ringing, it means the product is dried. If you have already taken the product from the baking sheet, place it on an oven mitt and tap it on the inside.

Browning

Once you are sure that all the products in the oven are completely dry, the temperature in it can be increased to 200°C. Do not leave the oven and watch until the product acquires the desired shade of brown. After varnishing the product, the brown color will be even more saturated. If parts of the product become too dark while browning, cover them with aluminum foil while the entire product continues to brown.

Advice. If you are in doubt about how long you need to fire the piece to get the desired color, brush the light and dark areas with a brush dipped in water and you will see how the browned piece will look after varnishing.

1. To ensure that the crafts are well preserved, after they are dried and painted, coat them with transparent liquid varnish. This will reliably protect them from moisture. If you don't like mirror shine, then use matte varnish.

2. ATTENTION! Products made from colored dough, except those to which cocoa powder has been added, should be dried at a temperature not exceeding 125°C, otherwise their color may change.

Since I am not a creative person, I did not sculpt products from salt dough, and there was no suitable opportunity. After the birth of my daughter, there is not much free time, but when I have it, I want to occupy myself with something interesting. On the Internet I looked at many pictures depicting casts of children's paws. Such a charm remains for a long time, and the child will probably be interested in seeing his little footprint in the future. So I decided to give my daughter a present for six months. I made salt dough and casts of my daughter’s legs and arms. I dried everything, painted it, varnished it. After some time, I noticed a crack in the product. This upset me very much, and I decided to find out why this unwanted crack had formed. It turns out this is due to improper drying. Let's try to figure out how to properly dry crafts made from salt dough.

Let's consider several options where and how possible dry salt dough products.

1. Outdoors.
Drying salt dough products outdoors is the most labor-intensive, as it takes a lot of time. You should observe those places of the object that are in direct contact with the table; during drying, indentations appear in these places. Also keep in mind that the thicker the product, the longer it will take to dry. Moisture is released from them very slowly and it should take a whole day for each millimeter of thickness.

2. In the oven.
The salt dough product can also be dried in the oven. To do this, place it on a baking sheet previously sprinkled with flour. Moreover, you should not immediately close the oven door, as bubbles will form on the product. Drying time and temperature should also vary. We start drying at a temperature of 50 degrees with the door open for one hour. Then close the door and continue drying at a temperature of 75 degrees. Drying time is 1 – 2 hours. Next, dry for about an hour at a temperature of 100 - 120 degrees. And finally, half an hour at 150 degrees. But you shouldn’t overdo it with drying either, as the products may swell or crack. Cracks can be covered with a prepared mixture of PVA glue, flour and water. We won't be able to remove the bubbles.

3. On radiators.
This method is used in winter, if there is no interruption in heating. Products made from salt dough are transferred to foil and dried on batteries until dry. The negative thing is that the area of ​​the battery does not allow for drying large items.

4. Mixed (or combined) drying.
This method of drying dough products is useful for those who perform voluminous work with large parts of the product. The essence of drying is that the product is first dried in the open air for several days, then it is dried in the oven. Using this method, you can confidently say that the product will not remain dry.

5. Hot air drying.
Salt dough products can be dried not only at room temperature, but also with hot air in special ovens. they contain significantly less. Another advantage of them is that you can dry several large items at the same time, unlike the oven. You can also dry it with hot air in a grill.

So there are several ways drying salt dough products. Choose the one you like and the drying conditions of which allow you to dry the item at your home. Please follow all established rules. And then you will be sure that your products will not crack, and will delight you and those around you with their beauty for a long time.

If you have to dry a craft for the first time, it will be useful to learn some subtleties. First of all, you need to understand the difference between drying and baking. It is a mistaken belief that an oven – electric or gas – is only suitable for baking. You can also dry the dough in it. It is important to know how and for how long.

There are several ways to dry salt dough:

• in the sun;
• at room temperature;
• on battery;
• in the oven;
• in the microwave;
• in a combined way.

Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Type of drying	pros	Minuses
In the sun	Does not require energy consumption	The craft takes a long time to dry
At room temperature	Economical	It takes a long time to dry. Indentations will remain on the product in contact with any surface.
On battery	Convenient to use in winter when the batteries are warm	The area does not allow drying volumetric figures
In the oven	The fastest way	Difficult to calculate temperature
In the microwave		Microwave cannot be used!
Combined method	Suitable for drying large crafts	Labour intensive

How long will it take to dry the craft?

Let's take a closer look at how long it will take a dough product to dry in one way or another.

• In the sun or in the room. The most economical method, as it does not require gas or electricity consumption. But with this method, every millimeter of the craft will take 24 hours to dry. This will happen much faster in the sun. This option is not suitable for large figures.
• In an electric oven. Time is calculated using the formula - 1 hour for every half centimeter of product thickness at a temperature of 75 degrees. Place the figurine in a cold oven. The temperature is increased every hour by 25 degrees.
• In a gas oven. Here, dough products dry twice as fast. Dry over low heat with the door slightly open. The first hour it is opened halfway, the second hour - a quarter, the third - the door is closed.
• Combined method. For two days, the craft is kept in the air, then sent to the oven for an hour, heated to 50 degrees, gradually increasing the temperature to a maximum of 150. This method is good for large products.
• On the battery (radiator). First cover the radiator with foil or cloth. It is better to place a board or plywood so that the ribbed surface of the battery does not deform the molding. Keep until completely dry.
• It is not recommended to dry salt dough in the microwave, since drying requires a very long time, which is not provided for in the software.
• Drying on the grill. An effective method, since everything will dry evenly. Electricity consumption is relatively small.

Drying will be more effective if done in several stages. Dry in the oven for an hour on one side, for a day at room temperature, the next day dry on the other side in the oven for an hour and a half.

What should I do to prevent the product from swelling and cracking?

Bloating, cracks, brittleness. A carefully sculpted figurine can easily be ruined. Therefore, it is important to know a few secrets.

• The salt dough should be dried either on a light baking sheet, or take into account the stronger heating of a dark baking sheet. In this case, the temperature must be reduced by 25 degrees.
• Hot products are very brittle. They should either be cooled on a baking sheet or removed with a spatula very carefully.
• The figures should not be raw. Readiness is checked in the old-fashioned way - you need to carefully tap the product with your finger. If the sound is ringing, the craft is ready; if it is dull, it needs to be dried.
• An under-dried craft will soon begin to deteriorate, change color and crack.
• To avoid bubbles, it is recommended to start drying with the oven door open.
• Before starting drying, the oven is heated to a minimum, they begin to dry on the top shelf, after the product is browned, it is placed on the middle one.
• The appearance of bubbles and swelling is a sign that the temperature must be lowered immediately, otherwise cracks will appear.
• Bubbles cannot be removed from the figure, but cracks can be carefully covered with PVA glue.
• Figures made from colored dough should be dried at a temperature no higher than 125 degrees so that the color does not change.
• The oven cannot be heated to more than 125 degrees if the craft is to be white. For the browning effect, the oven is heated to 200 degrees.
• After drying and painting, finished crafts are varnished to protect them from moisture.

The cause of cracking may be flour chosen incorrectly. It should not contain additives. You can add rye flour or 2 tbsp to the wheat flour. spoons of starch. The plasticity of the modeling dough is given by PVA glue (a tablespoon per glass of flour).

Products made from salt dough are one of the most accessible types of creativity. Sculpt with your children, dry correctly, and most importantly, as much as necessary. Enjoy the process!