These kitchen-clay hearts are simple and fun to make for a special valentine.
Because these hearts need to bake for two hours, you might want to plan ahead to bake the hearts one day and decorate them the next. We decorated our valentine hearts with glitter glue and ribbon roses sold at craft stores, but you could attach charms or buttons to personalize them for your special friends.
There are lots of things you can do with the finished hearts. We attached pins to the back of some so that they could be worn as jewelry. For others, we glued magnets on the back so they could be used on refrigerators or metal desks. And for our gardening friends, we glued bamboo skewers to the back so that they could be used as flowerpot decorations.
You also could poke holes in the hearts before they are baked, then tie ribbons through the holes so that they could be hung from a bare branch tree like Christmas ornaments.
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Project: Kitchen-clay valentine hearts
Time: 1 hour, not including baking and drying time
Cost: Under $10 for about 15 hearts
Skill level: Beginner
Materials:
1/2 cup salt
1 cup flour, plus extra for rolling out the dough
1/2 cup water
Mixing bowl
Wooden spoon
Rolling pin
Heart-shaped cookie cutters
Cookie sheet
Acrylic craft paint (we used red, white, pink and purple)
Artist paint brush
Acrylic sealer, spray type
Glitter glue in assorted colors, optional
Newspapers
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
White glue such as Elmer's
Finishing materials such as magnets, jewelry pins, bamboo skewers, ribbon roses
Instructions:
1 In a mixing bowl, mix together the salt, flour and water to make a clay dough. The dough should be soft, not dry and crumbly.
2 Sprinkle the work surface lightly with extra flour. Use the rolling pin to roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thick. Use the cookie cutters to cut out hearts.
3 Transfer the hearts to an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees for about two hours or until they are hard and dry.
4 Cool the hearts completely before you go to the next step.
5 Place the hearts on a sheet of newspaper to protect the work surface. Paint the hearts with craft paint. They will take about 30 minutes to dry. When dry, spray them with acrylic sealer and allow them to dry again – about 20 minutes.
6 Decorate the hearts with glitter glue. Use white glue to attach ribbon roses, if desired.
7 When the hearts have dried completely, use hot glue to attach magnets, skewers or pins to the back.
Note: Unused kitchen clay will dry out if it isn't used within an hour, so it's best to make it in small batches unless you have lots of helpers.
Call The Bee's Gwen Schoen, (916) 323-1146.
