Like many of you, I recently planted some of my seeds for my garden this Spring. I mentioned I was going to be trying something new this year to hopefully give my vegetables a head start this Spring and I’ll talk about that in another post. Today I wanted to share this super easy DIY salt dough garden marker craft with you all.
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Although I don’t have any kids myself as I was making these I couldn’t help but think how this little craft would be a fun thing to do with kiddos who might be going a bit stir crazy during this time. I thought it would be cool to add food coloring to the salt dough and let your little ones sculpt something like they would play dough.
Just an idea.
I though up these little markers out of pure necessity. Last year I simply taped the seed packets to my garden beds and prayed they stayed there throughout the season (or at least until they grew big enough for me to be able to tell what they were). Obviously not the most practical identification system.
This year I wanted something a little more reliable and fun. Originally I wanted to make my own DIY air dry clay.
However, the recipe for making your own clay requires corn starch and I was out.
Then go figure, when I actually remembered to put it on the grocery store list the store was completely out.
I realize right now people are struggling to get a lot of basic household items at the stores just like this.
The great thing about this salt dough is that it is not only super easy and inexpensive, but the dough itself is made from staples I can pretty much guarantee every household has in their kitchen!
And like I said not only is this dough super easy to make you also can feel good about letting your little ones play with it because all the ingredients are safe and come right from your pantry at home.
So without further ado, let’s get to it. Here’s what you’ll need.
Supplies
- 1 cup flower
- ½ cup salt
- ½ cup water
That’s it. These diy salt dough garden markers are made up of just 3 ingredients!
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit.
- Mix all the ingredients together until you’ve formed a dough ball.
- Split your dough ball into several smaller dough balls somewhere around the size of a quarter.
- Roll your smaller dough balls into a worm shape.
- Taking a rolling pin or empty bottle flatten out your worm shaped dough until it’s about a quarter of an inch in thickness.
- Be sure to roll your dough out on your parchment paper or foil you’ll be baking your dough on.
- Using a butter knife make a pointed end where your garden marker can securely stick into the ground.
- (Optional: using rubber alphabet stamps stamp out your seed names onto your markers.)
- Place your dough markers into the oven and set a timer for 2 hours (Be sure to check periodically).
- (Note: I wish I would have thought to try this earlier, but the dough curves as it bakes so they do not come out of the oven completely flat. I thought sticking a baking sheet on top of the dough markers while they baked might have helped with this.)
After the timer goes off you can take your salt dough garden markers out of the oven and see how they turned out!
Obviously be sure to let them cool first 😉
If you don’t have any alphabet stamps handy no worries you can write your seed names directly on your dough markers with sharpie or paint.
I actually ended up painting some of my garden markers entirely in some paints I had laying around the house.
I hope you guys enjoyed this super easy craft making DIY Garden Markers from homemade salt dough.
You can find more DIY and craft ideas HERE.
If you tried this recipe out I’d love to hear how yours came out.
You can share your DIY salt dough garden markers by finding me on Pinterest, or on Instagram @heatherpaigeblog!
As always thanks for stopping by the blog today, your support means the world to me!!
