Salt Dough Landscape

My son and I made this landscape for him to use with his growing collection of animals, pioneers, Indians, cowboys and pirates. The base is plywood, and no, it is not square. We just raided my husband's scrap pile and used what we found. We made armatures out of foil for the cave and the mountains, and hot glued them to the base. Then, we mixed up a large batch of salt dough and went to work. After the dough dried, my son painted the whole thing with acrylic paints. The pond was made by first coating the adhesive side of sticker paper with glitter, then using spray glue to adhere it to the base. On top of the glitter, I used some sort of glaze stuff that is supposed to be for scrapbooking I think. It creates a nice, raised water-like texture. After we did all that, I sprayed on a generous coat of varnish. The hardest part was waiting for the various stages to dry. That seems like an eternity for a five year old!