I’ve been wanting to find a way to share about Dia de Los Muertos with my littles. Sugar skulls aren’t really available here so I wanted to find something that I could easier make myself. My first thought was cookies and cookies might still happen but for now we’ve gone with something else.
Salt Dough Sugar Skulls.
I made the first one,Cat made the middle one and Gizmo made the last one
You can find the recipe I use here.
The skulls came together fast.
We started with an egg shape that we flattened with our hands.
Next we poked holes near the top with a map pencil.
The eyes were made with the top of a peg, but a map pencil would work too just don’t press too hard!
The mouth was made with a Popsicle stick.
Dry these out in a warm oven at about 200 degrees for a couple of hours or just let them air dry, overnight should be good but check them to make sure.
When they are completely dry it’s time to decorate.
We started by painting them white and painting the sockets black but anything went after that.
I love that these were pretty easy for the littles to help me make and that they had the ability to decorate them however they wanted to. I pretty much let them look through my entire art making/crafting stash.
I had planned to leave the eye sockets black but the kids found my googley eyes.
Goggley eyes are not to be resisted.
It was fun to talk about the history behind Dia de los Muertos as we made these. Dia de los Muertos is not something that I grew up with but I have long found the skulls associated with the day to be beautiful. I also love that the day is a way to honor those loved ones that are no longer with you, while making death a festive thing; a new beginning, as opposed to a sad thing we should be wary of.
Hung from branches in the middle of our kitchen table our salt dough sugar skulls serve as a remembrance of the things we talked on for our family.
