We are kicking off our DIY Summer Camp {Camp Mom} with Dinosaur Week! So far it has been a blast and the kids and I are soaking in all the dinosaur fun! Having the summer camp themes flows right along with my Pinterest Challenge. Since we have an entire Pinterest Board full of ideas, it was easy to pick out a fun pin for Week 25. I wanted to make dinosaur fossils and there were lots of pins to choose from. I decided to go with the Salt Dough Recipe from Messy Little Monsters for our DIY Painted Dinosaur Fossils.
Making salt dough was on my bucket list of things to do last Christmas. Of course, the holidays got so busy and I never got around to it. If you check out the recipe from Messy Little Monster, you will find a ton of ideas for salt dough.
The recipe is super simple. Combine 2 cups of plain flour with 1 cup of salt. Add up to 1 cup of water. Once you have the dough, roll it into balls and flatten them to about 1/2 inch. Graylie really enjoyed this part the best. She did all of the mixing and kneading of the dough.
You can get super creative with the next step. We pressed our little dinosaurs into the dough. We also made footprints from a larger T-Rex and with some of the smaller dinosaurs. You will need to let these fossils dry for a few days. You can also put them in a low temperature oven to dry them out quicker.
I thought about just stopping there with our fossils. They are already super cool! I really wanted to coat them with glitter paint but Gavin told me that wasn’t very realistic. So we decided to go ahead and add some paint but use more neutral colors.
I’ve decided that painting is definitely my therapy. I had a million things that I really needed to be doing this afternoon. Once I picked up that paint brush I was able to forget all about it. As always we had a really fun time painting together.
This is the only beginning of our DIY Summer Camp! I’m hoping to share one more project with you before I do a recap of Dinosaur Week. I really think I could do dinosaurs for an entire month. There are so many fun activities and great ideas! Please feel free to share some of your favorites with us!
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