How to Make a Dough Pen

Keep that old, ugly looking pen and customize it with salt dough. Making salt dough pens is a project that the whole family can do together. Buy a package of cheap pens and make a bunch of these. The following will show you how you can make your own customized dough pen.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Saran wrap
• Pen
• Modeling clay
• Salt Dough
• Toothpick
• Paint brush
• Water
• Acrylic paints
• Acrylic sealer spray

Mix the Salt Dough

1. Put two cups of flour and a cup of salt into a medium-sized bowl.

2. Pour in a cup of water and mix up the ingredients as best you can with a spoon.

3. Put a little flour on your hands and kneed the dough. Add a bit more flour if the dough is too sticky until it becomes a nice doughy consistency.

Make the Pen

4. Wrap a regular pen in saran wrap, going over it until it is entirely covered twice over. Make sure that the whole writing tip part of the pen is still exposed.

5. Push the tip of the pen into a ball of modeling clay until it reaches the part where the saran wrap is on the pen. Set it up so the pen is facing upward on the clay base.

6. Cover the pen in the salt dough you have made, making sure it is covered entirely and the top is a little bit fatter and gets smaller as it goes downward toward the tip. Make two balls for eyes out of the salt dough and one for a nose and set them aside. Also make ears, hair and any other details you would like to add to your dough pen.

7. Brush water onto the dough on the pen with a paintbrush. This helps the eyes, nose and other features you've made to stick better to the dough.

8. Stick the eyes, nose ears and hair onto the dough. Use a toothpick to push these smaller pieces onto the base. Stick the toothpick in the middle of each eye to make a pupil.

9. Sculpt the rest of the pen the way you want it to look. Let the pen sit up on the modeling clay until it is completely dry. This project may take a day or two to dry depending upon how thick the dough is on your pen.

10. Paint your pen with acrylic craft paints once it is completely dry. If you need to use more than one coat, let the paint dry completely between coats. Once the paint is dry, spray the pen with two coats of acrylic sealer spray to seal your creation.

11. Remove your pen from the modeling clay when the acrylic sealer is completely dry. Now you have a customized dough pen.

Tips & Warnings

• Use your imagination with this project to make all kinds of designs on your pens.