Salt Dough Buddy Pens
By: Amanda Formaro
Difficulty: Average
Age: 8 and up
Average User Rating:
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Make these adorable personalized buddy pens from simple household ingredients and a little imagination. You will need to be patient as the dough must dry overnight, but once ready, your pen will be the talk of the school!
Visit our complete listing of Back-to-School crafts for even more craft ideas and activities for the classroom.
What you'll need:
How to make it:
- Mix together the salt, flour and water in a bowl. If dough is too sticky, sprinkle on more flour and mix until it no longer sticks. Don't make it too dry or it will crack.
- Starting about an inch or so above the pen's point, roll the rest of the pen in a couple layers of plastic wrap.
- Poke the point of the pen into some modeling clay up to where the plastic wrap begins. This will be used as a base for standing your pen up later.
- Roll a handful of dough in your hands until it's pliable and wrap around the remaining exposed pen, which should already be covered in plastic wrap. Mold the salt dough around the pen into a carrot shape - the top part of the pen should be the widest. Note: Rolling both the pen and dough on a sheet of waxed paper is helpful to make this shape. Lay your character on the waxed paper to add details.
- Use smaller pieces of salt dough to create the eyes, nose and mouth for your character. Do this by rolling small amounts of dough into circles or lines and press them on the body. If you have trouble with them sticking, use a dab of water to adhere them to the dough.
- Use a toothpick to draw on details such as eyelashes, eyebrows, freckles, or use it to poke small holes in the center of eyes to create irises.
- To add funky hair, insert 3" pieces of chenille stems. For feathers, simply poke feathers into salt dough wherever you want them.
- Carefully lift waxed paper with character on it and place on a cookie sheet or cutting board and leave to dry. Here is where patience comes into play: salt dough will dry on its own without being cooked, but a large amount will take several hours to dry all the way through. It's best to let these sit for a night or two, depending on how thick the characters are.
- Once dry, paint details with acrylic craft paint. Use a toothpick dipped in paint to get the small details. Let dry, then paint the other side. Let dry completely.
- Spray surface with two coats of acrylic sealer spray, allowing them to dry between coats.
- Remove the pen from the modeling clay and clean off the tip.
