Hearts and Lace Prints in Playdough

I’ve had playdough lace prints on my mind for a while now. Years, in fact. I’d seen a photo of lace printing in cookies via pinterest and the idea of using lace to print in dough has lingered.

So, this week, when I got my fabric stash out to make heart pillows as Valentine’s Day gifts and came across lace doilies I had picked up from a yard sale, I decided it was time.

I set out playdough, doilies, rolling pin, and a few other supplies on the art table and, when the kids got home from school, we each tried our hand at making lace prints in the playdough. And then later, in air dry clay.

Here’s how we did it…

Lace Prints in Playdough

MATERIALS

• Playdough (try one of these awesome homemade playdough recipes for a nice, big batch of super soft playdough to work with)
• Lace doilies*
• Rolling pin
• Embroidery hoop (optional)
• Art mat or plastic placemat (these are from Ikea; I’ve also written about some in my post on art tools)
• Heart cookie cutters (optional)

*We used lace doilies picked up from a yard sale, but you can also purchase lace doilies new in fabric or craft stores or online.

INSTRUCTIONS

Set a wooden embroidery hoop on the mat. This is an optional step, as we figured out later, but since my photos show it, I’ll include it… Place playdough within the hoop and press with fingers for a relatively even layer that rises above the hoop level.

Drape your doily over dough. Roll with the rolling pin.

Lift the doily to reveal the print.

If desired, start again with other lace doilies for other lace prints.

Or use your lace-printed playdough to make things…

More Ideas for Playdough Lace Prints

Daphne cut out hearts with the heart cookie cutter and decorated them with glass beads, googly eyes, and small heart-punched pieces of paper that she colored.

She was so into them that we were not allowed to fold them back into our playdough at the end of the day, but rather, she saved them  and took them into kindergarten the next day for show and tell and then home again to display and keep forever.**

**Playdough, at least our homemade playdough, gets crusty and salty when dried out. Some of the kids’ sculptures and treasures get saved for a while but are not really forever keepsakes.

Maia used her lace-printed playdough to make a scary kitty, complete with garlic press hair, black-beaded eyes, and yellow playdough fangs.

She also wanted to keep the creation she had spent so much time on.

Afterward, I wished we had done all of this in more permanent air dry clay instead of playdough, although playdough was an ideal way to try out the lace-printing activity.

So I picked up some Crayola air dry clay at the store and we gave the activity another go with the more permanent medium. It’s not as colorful, but we can always paint them if we want to. I’ll share the clay lace print ornaments we made in a post tomorrow or the next day…

Update: Here are the lace print hearts we made with the air dry clay. They turned out beautifully!

By the way, I also found this post on Mommy Labs using lace ribbon for printing in playdough. And her playdough is pink and extra Valentine-y!

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