Molded paw print ornaments

I chose to write a blog about these ornaments because they are not my favorite and I wanted wanted to make sure that readers knew some of the complications before going into this craft. I found this recipe for the clay on pintrest and it seemed pretty easy and like most of the other recipes that i have found. I included the recipe below.

 Play by Play of the Recipe

Step 1: 

 This is adding the ingredients in a pot and heating on medium while constantly stirring the mixture in the pot. The mixture will be begin to thicken and come together in a mass. (The level of ingredients have to be just right to make sure that the mixture does this.)

Step 2:

This is what the mixture should look like before covering it with a damp towel for 15 minutes. 

Step 3: Once you have created the recipe you are supposed to make them into balls and press the hand/paw into the mixture to make the impression. I had read on some sights that it would be easier to go ahead and flatten the mixture before pressing hand/paw into the mixture because it made it easier to shape the ornament. So I did this step when making mine.

*However, even though it says you can just use the pressed hand/paw without decorating them it is hard to see just the impression (The ones above have been pressed). Once they started drying it made it even harder to see the impression so for people who wanted to decorate them it made it harder to do so. So I decorated mine right after I did the impression.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/534239574527105032/

This craft is very messy and takes a lot longer than expected. The recipe says to let it dry overnight but it actually takes several days for it to dry. And several of my ornaments actually cracked in half while i left them out to dry. My mom who used to be a preschool teacher said that the same thing happened to her when she did this craft and she ended up trying to hot glue them back together.


I personally love the finial product but will never do this craft again because of the mess and the time it took to do them and then not being able to use all of them because they cracked while drying. Even the ones that did make it through drying I was hesitant when I finally put them on the tree in fear they would crack and I still check daily to make sure my ornament is still put together.