I hope all you mothers and mothers-to-be have a joyous weekend!  Our weekend didn’t go as planned and I’m in Pennsylvania and my husband is heading down to North Carolina – but we’re making the most of it.

Anyway, I always try to get my mom something a little different than the standard flowers/chocolate covered strawberries and card – which I have done in years past – so, I went to my trust worthy site for great ideas: Pinterest.  There were just so many ideas I didn’t know where to begin!  Should I make a sign that has “mother” spelled out in scrabble letters along with a word that has each of those letters in?  Should I do buy another thing of jewlery like I did last year (a birds nest with all her kiddos birth stones as the eggs and a bird on a fine chain necklace) or should I do something with my daughter?  A handprint painting made in to something?

Honestly, after WEEKS of brainstorming, I finally decided on the scrabble letter sign.  Until I went to Walmart and they didn’t have scrabble letters!  So I called my husband in a panick and he told me to just do our darling daughters handprint.  Not wanting to just do a “painting”, I then went back to Pinterest.  (What in the world did OUR parents do without that site/app?!) I decided on making a salt dough ornament – and the only cookie cutter I had in the kitchen at the time?  A flower.  Perfect!

Salt Dough Ornament

• 1 c salt
• 2 c flour
• Up to 1 c water
• Medium bowl
• Measuring cups
• Rolling pin
• Cookie cutters
• Acrylic paints
• Modge Podge

Mix the flour and salt together in a medium mixing bowl.  Slowly add the water, while mixing.  If you don’t need an entire cup before the dough forms, don’t use it – you don’t want your dough to be runny!

Once dough forms, kneed for about 5 minutes.  The longer you kneed, the smoother the dough will be.  Roll out to 1/8-1/4 inch thick and then use cookie cutters to cut out shapes.  At this point, I pressed my daughters hand into the flower – but that’s completely unncessary if you don’t want the hand imprint.  I also used a straw to make a hole in the top, so that it could hang.

Place cutouts on a cookie sheet, lined with parchment paper, and place in an oven heated to 150 degrees.  I just let them sit in there for a couple hours like the instructions said to and they ended up turning out like this…

Sooo, since they looked like something out of the time of cavemen, I decided a good coating of paint was necessary.  Or 10 because my paint kept cracking…

After finally giving up on the paint NOT cracking, I decided to give the handprint a different color so it would pop.  I’ve had a few containers of paint from past projects, so I ended up using white.  The paint still continued to crack and since I was leaving for my parents the following day, the only thing I could do was run to Walmart for some Modge Podge to seal off and hope the glossy finish masked the cracks.  Not completely, but I loved the finished product.

I originally made 9.  Only 3 had deep enough hand prints that I was able to use.  So instead of grandmothers getting them as well, I only made enough for Frank’s and my mothers and then for me! (Obviously!!)