Crafts for Kids - Wood Dough for Sculpting

If your kids like playing with molding dough like play doh or molding clay, they will love making sculptures with homemade wood dough. Homemade wood dough dries to a wood finish and can be sanded down smooth with sandpaper. You can also paint or stain wood dough sculptures. To paint them, you can use any of the homemade paint recipes I have at the bottom of this article. I also give you instructions as to how to make an easy stain for your wood dough works of art. Have fun sculpting!

What you will need to make wood dough:
1 cup of clean sawdust (you can get it at the craft store)
1/2 cup flour
1 tablespoon liquid starch (it's in the laundry section)
1 cup of water

Step 1: Combine the sawdust and the flour in a bowl and mix well.

Step 2: Add the liquid starch and the water to the dry ingredients and mix until a stiff dough is formed. If the mixture is too dry, you can add a bit more water. If it is too sticky, you can add a bit more flour.

Step 3: Create your sculptures. Let your imagination go wild! You can make figures, boxes, beads, dolls, pendants, or whatever your creative mind can dream up.

Step 3: Let your sculptures dry for a couple days. Thin pieces will dry more quickly. Thicker pieces may take three days to dry. If your sculptures should start to crack while drying, you can mix a bit of sawdust and/or flour with a bit of white glue like Elmer's glue and use the glue putty to fill any cracks.

Step 4: Sand and paint or stain your sculptures, if desired, after they are dry. I have recipes below that you can use to make your own paint. If you want to stain your pieces, just mix about 6 drops of food coloring with a tablespoon of water and use it as a stain. You can also use coffee or tea as a stain.

Tips: You can make wooden beads with wood dough. Just be sure you make a hole in the beads with a toothpick before they dry.

Here are some of my homemade paint recipes that you can use to paint your wood dough sculptures:

3 Craft Paint Recipes - Egg Yolk Paint, Laundry Starch Paint and Gelatin Paint

2 Finger Paint Recipes - Flour Finger Paint and Cornstarch Finger Paint

3 Kids Paint Recipes: Scratch and Sniff Watercolor Paint, Bathtub Finger Paints, Sidewalk Paint

Paint Recipes for Kids - Foamy Paint, Instant Finger Paint, Glossy Paint