Homemade Plaster for Hand and Feet Moulds

Making the Clay

Ingredients

• 1 cup cornflour or cornstarch
• 2 cups bi carb soda
• 1 ½ cups water
• (food colouring if you desire)

Method

• Place the flour, bi carb and water into a medium saucepan and mix well with a whisk until it resembles runny cream. Add food colour at this point, if you want a coloured clay.
• Place the saucepan over med-high heat and continually stir with a large spoon, making sure you are scraping along the corners of the pan.
• The mixture will start to bubble; then, it will quickly turn into a thick mashed potato consistency (see image).
• Turn this mash onto a sheet of baking paper and cover with a damp tea towel to cool.
• You can also store any leftover dough for 1 month by wrapping it in a damp tea towel, sealing it inside a zip lock bag and refrigerating it.

Making the Footprint and Handprint Keepsakes

It is as simple as rolling out dome dough and stamping onto it some feet or handprints.

• You then need to place the completed prints in a warm oven to dry out fully – you need to place them directly in the oven, so they don’t start to crack as they air-dry. It is best to place them on a drying rack or a cookie cooling rack inside the oven, as this helps to dry the base as well. They will need to bake for at least one hour to dry completely – maybe two if the clay is more than 2 cm thick.
• Once they are dry from the oven, and cool to touch you can paint them any colour you like. For example, you can use spray paints of any colour you wish.
• Once the spray paint has dried, you can give them a final coat of clear varnish (in an aerosol form).

Let your creativity flow to think of what else you can do with the casting dough! Fossils can also be made in a similar manner by stamping plastic bugs or dead leaves on the cast.