It’s that time of year again! As the holidays quickly approach us, we wanted to do something fun and commemorative with the pack. We found a video on how to make paw print ornaments out of salt clay, but decided that the amount of salt in the recipe could be disastrous if someone was to accidentally ingest the clay. So we set out to find a recipe that would be non toxic, when we stumbled upon a simple, easy to follow, three ingredient recipe, we were sold!
Recipe:
1/2 cup of corn starch
1 cup of baking soda
3/4 cup of water (tap water is fine)
Order the ingredients here (if you don’t already have them)
Quick Instructions:
1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Pour the water into the dry ingredients and mix well to form a milky consistency.
3. Pour into a pot and cook over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. It should simmer and bubble, but if it starts splashing, lower the heat accordingly.
4. You will know when the dough is complete when it starts to pull away from the pot as you are stirring and forms a mashed potato-like consistency.
5. Pour it onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and dusted with corn starch.
6. After 5 minutes, the dough should be cool enough to handle with your bare hands. Separate and shape the dough into your desired sizes depending on how big or small your pets paws are.
*NOTE* If you would like to dye the clay, now would be the time (before you actually have them place their paws into the dough)**
7. Stamp their paws into the dough.
8. Use cookie cutters, lids, or anything round to cut the ornament to size. We just used a lid and a cup we found to cut them into circles, but feel free to get creative with shapes and designs.
9. Use a straw to poke a hole anywhere on the ornament, so you can string ribbon through it later on.
10. Place the tray into the the oven and bake at 175 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, flip the ornaments over, and bake for another 30 minutes.
11. After they are completely cool, use non toxic kids paint, glitter, and nail polish to decorate the ornaments.
Watch our instructional video here! DIY Paw Print Ornaments Instructional Video
This recipe is easy to make and best of all, easy to clean up! It is safe for pets and children (if you want to do hand prints). We enjoyed making the clay while spending time with each other.
Just a little blurb about how funny it was for us to mess up such an easy recipe, because, of course, we had to find a way. We were shopping and thought we had baking soda at home, so we decided not to buy any, only to realize that we only had baking powder. What’s the difference right? We can make our own original clay recipe right? People do it all the time, we can totally pull this off! So the first time around, we used baking powder instead of baking soda. Let me just say, it was not a good idea. The mixture bubbled violently and took forever to actually cook and turn into clay. We stirred our arms off! Once it turned into clay, it was leaky, wet, and kept cracking as we worked with it. It all took much longer than expected and ended with extremely fragile, cracked ornaments. Lesson learned, baking powder and baking soda are not the same thing. The second time around we followed the exact recipe and everything went a lot smoother. We may not be the craftiest people, but we did manage to make some mean paw print ornaments that we’ll get to treasure for years to come! Trust us, if we can do this project, so can you!
Thank you for reading! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our family to yours!
Rosie & the Huskies 
Thanks! I enjoyed this blog post with the do it yourself recipe and recommendations. I have not done this with my dogs or other pets but I want to do it. It would make fun gifts for pet loving friends. Perhaps, a fun DIY pre-holiday party, too.
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