Baker's Clay

By: Diane Willis

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
acrylic paint, your choice of color
reclosable plastic bag

Place first two ingredients in reclosable plastic bag. Add water, gradually, and knead until you achieve a smooth elastic "dough." If the dough is too sticky, add more flour. Once you have a smooth dough, add a few drops of your choice of color paint (I used beige for the project I'm about to tell you about), and knead into dough (still in bag) ; continue to add paint until your achieve the desired intensity of color. At this stage, you can roll it out like cookie dough, make ornaments for your tree, and it also makes a great project for kids! After you have created your design, bake the dough on a cookie sheet in the oven at 250 F for a couple of hours until the dough is dry to the touch.

*One of the suggestions made is to melt paraffin wax in a double boiler, and once your design has cooled, dip into paraffin wax to achieve a more "finished" look.

Allow to dry on wax paper.

What I chose to do was roll it out like a pie crust. Using a sharp knife, I cut the dough into strips. Having inverted a glass pie pan on a cookie sheet, I "wove" a lattice pie crust top. Once it was finished, I dipped it in paraffin. Then I took a tin pie pan (the type you buy at the grocery store) filled it with Apples & Spice potporri, put the "lattice crust" on top, and displayed it in a pie carrier in my kitchen. When my husband first saw it, he thought I had baked a pie, between the realistic look and the wonderful aroma!

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