Handmade Diyas from Salt Dough: Budget friendly Diwali DIY

Diwali is over...the five days of festivities are over!

I wake up in the morning only to realize that the festival time is finally over and I have to get back to the daily routine...we feel so awful when we come in terms with the reality...call it post festival depression or whatever, nothing could change how I felt the way I felt!

As I went about the house clearing up the things and removing decorations from around the house, I collected the colorful diyas we made just before Diwali. It's an activity we don't do every year, and Diwali also was just a few days away...but we gave it a try all the same...better late than never!

Here's a picture of the few Diyas, we made from Salt Dough for the Diwali celebration this year. 

Salt Dough Diyas

And while I am at it, let me share the recipe for the salt dough diya too. Maybe, next year some of you could give it a try. It happens that you will find flour and salt in every home in the Indian household and it turns out that this diyas are budget friendly too. So here's presenting a budget friendly Diwali DIY that you should really try for, next year, same time.

Recipe for Salt Dough Diya:

Dough (Atta or Maida-refined wheat flour) - 1 cup

Salt - 1/2 cup

Water - Enough to knead the flour ( I used about 1/2 cup)

Method:

Mix the Atta or Maida with salt (here I used Maida and salt), and then add water gradually as you knead them or else the dough would end up being too loose. Once, the dough is ready you can start making the diyas, or you can also refrigerate them in an air-tight container to use later. In fact, I used mine after a couple of days only.

The dough kneaded with using the above proportions yielded about 8 medium sized diyas; the size was big enough to hold tealight candles. To shape the diyas we used the same method as per the tutorial I posted earlier for making diyas using air dry clay. You can view the same tutorial here. We made the diyas experimenting in different shapes and sizes; we made some in the shape of a mango leaf, a couple of pentagons and hexagons and a heart shape too.

I experimented by trying to bake one of the diyas in the microwave and the result was disastrous for it just got burnt in a couple of minutes; probably the temperature was too high. I wasn't in the mood to burn the rest of them that my daughter and I had both made with so much patience and hard work. So I left them to dry in the sun to let it dry naturally. It took nearly 4 days to dry off completely.

Salt Dough Diyas before drying

Once the diyas were left in the sun to dry, I kept on checking them everyday on their progress...All of them had dried from the top but the bottom surface was still wet...so I had to turn them over so that the bottom surface would also be exposed to the sun and would eventually dry out. Finally, on the 4th day, I found them all dry and ready to be painted.

Sun-dried Salt Dough Diyas for Diwali

Once these diyas dried, I found they had shrinked in size - a little wee bit. We used acrylic paints to add colors. It was just a day before the Kali Puja, and we left the Diyas to dry again - this time the paint had to dry. Finally, the wait was over and the result was beautiful. We had some beautiful handmade decorative diyas ready to be used for the Diwali nights. And yes, they were budget friendly too!

Hand-painted Salt Dough Diyas for Diwali

Hope you find the tutorial useful. Do share your views and ideas if you try making them. Hoping to hear about your experiences too and learn from them also.

Do share this tutorial with your friends and family too.

Thank you for stopping by...have a good day!

---