A Valentine's Gift for Mia

Mobiles are part of my A-Z list of salt dough items and since I am busy with a few other Valentine's gifts, I thought I should try to make a heart mobile.

It turned out quite nicely and it will be my granddaughter Mia's first Valentine's gift. She has captured my heart completely, she is a little angel and a shining star on days that I feel down.

I did not initially make the mobile with her in mind, but to show you how salt dough can be used for mobiles. The big heart was cut from a template I printed on the computer. I used a cocktail stick to make holes into the big salt dough heart to hang the smaller heart strings from. Read more...

The smaller hearts were cut out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and I carefully pushed cocktail sticks into them to make the holes. Be sure to oil the cocktail sticks before you insert it into the dough hearts and leave it in while baking. This will ensure that the dough do not shrink and close during the baking process to leave you with hearts with too small holes or no hole at all to thread them afterwards.

Bake the salt dough hearts until hard, take out of the oven, let it cool for a few seconds and remove the sticks. If the dough cools completely, it will shrink and you will not be able to remove the cocktail sticks. (I had to discard quite a few of the smaller hearts as a result of this.)

Paint the hearts in color of choice with acrylic paint and apply two to three coats of clear varnish. Take care not to clog the holes with the varnish. Decorate as desired. I used small star and flower beads I had for quite some time. The angel is made from Plaster of Paris. Apply wood glue to the back of the angel and just a dab to the beads and place randomly onto the big heart. I also decorated the back of the heart in the same way.Thread thin fishing line through the small hearts, make knots between each heart to keep it in place and tie securely to the holes in the big heart. I used a small plastic ring to hang the mobile.

I hanged the finished mobile on a hook in my kitchen window and went outside to see how it would look. The reflection of the clouds and trees were quite interesting and I just had to take a few pictures. This is my favorite one.