Mistle-toes Salt Dough Ornament Tutorial

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I was afraid that I would never get Phia's gift to her grandma's and Godmother done on time but Thanks to a snow-day the Thursday before Christmas we got them done and I would have to say they turned out quite nicely.

The idea for these ornaments came off of this.  But Phia was so interested in squishing the dough between her fingers that I couldn't get a decent print.  So I went back to the drawing board and I remembered seeing  this a while back so I made the best of both and used the salt dough I had already made to make mistle-toes!

Tutorial time!

What you need:

2 cups flour

1/2 cup salt

1/2 - 1 cup Water 

Green Acrylic or some other kind of semi-permanent paint

Something to poke holes in the ornament

Hot glue

Fishing line (or some other kind of string/wire to hang the ornaments)

Red Buttons, beads, pom-poms.... etc

Directions:

1. Mix the flour, salt, and water together to make the dough.  You want the dough to be the same consistency of bread dough (I forgot to take pictures of the dough).
2. Next roll out the dough, I did mine about 1 - 1 1/2 inches think.
3. Take your LO's (little one) foot and press it into the dough to make an impression and then take a knife and cut the foot out and use something to poke holes through the top of them.  You will need two cut-outs for each ornament.
4. Next bake the feet at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 hours.
5. When cool, paint the feet green.
6. Next glue the two feet together making sure that the holes line up.  
7. Glue your red "berries" on to the green feet and then last but not least string the fishing line/wire/string through the holes. And wa-la you now have a Mistle-toes ornament!

****NOTE The hot glue is probably not needed if you'd press two feet together and the heels before baking.  And if you forget to poke holes in the feet before baking, like I did, a drill works nice to add the holes.****


P.S. My Facebook page is now up and running and you can find it at The Stuffings of a Sock Monkey.  So you fine people should head on over there and like it up so we can start having some awesome conversations!

P.S.S So I designed this totally awesome background for the blog and I can not get it to work so that is why it is all black.  I will continue to work on that today and hopefully have it figured out and the Social Media buttons up and working as well.

Peace <3

Homemade Cloth Diaper detergent

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Almost every brand of cloth diapers has their own special detergent that they want you to use on their diapers. But unless you have a CD store in your area you will more than likely have to order it online.  And if  you're like me and don't have a credit or debit card then you are kind of in a tough spot.

That is why I decided to do a little research on homemade detergent and came across a lot of information.  With most of the detergents containing 3 similar ingredients: Borax, Washing Soda, and Oxiclean. So I just took that information, went to my local Wal*Mart and was able to find all the ingredients there. I then went home and got to work.

My CD detergent Recipe:

• 2 Cup Washing Soda
• 2 Cup Borax
• 1 Cup Sun Oxygen (similar to Oxiclean just cheaper)

The process to making this was simple.  I me`asured out and mixed all 3 ingredients together in my plastic container and it was done.  But I went a step further and transferred some of it into a Mason Jar just because it is easier to store on my washer.  Use 2 Tablespoons per load

Washing Method #1

Rinse/Spin cycle on cold with no detergent, Full wash cycle on hot with 2 TBSP detergent, Rinse/Spin cycle on cold with no detergent.  I then hang dry the covers and Pocket diapers and throw the FSTs, inserts, and perfolds into the dryer on medium/low heat for 30-45 minutes.

I've gotten lazy though and now use this method:

Washing Method #2

Full wash cycle on Cold with 2 TBSP detergent and then throw everything into the dryer on Medium/low heat for 30-45 minutes.

There are those weeks though where I go a little longer between washes, like last week, and when that happens I end up doing method #1 and sometimes add 1 or 2 extra rinses at the end.