When Pinterest Goes wrong...

I decided to help my students make a special gift for their parents. .. They would make Salt-dough ornaments to hang on their trees at their homes.  Normally, I have my students make the ornaments one day, I take the ornaments home and bake the ornaments for 2 or 3 hours at 250 degrees, or until the ornaments are all dry.

Well, good old Pinterest had a recipe where you can make the salt dough and then microwave it  for "2 to 4 minutes".  2 to 4 minutes instead of hours...great! And,the children can paint them that day..and take them home!  Since I am still on crutches with a broken leg, I need to have less to have someone else carry.   I went into the school's kitchen with the children and had them measure and mix the 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and    1 and 1/2 cup of water.  All went well as we formed dough balls. Each child rolled out his/her dough and cut out a shape that he/she chose (trees, teddy bears, stars, hearts, etc).

Next, we put a hole in the ornament so the children could string them in order to hang them on the tree when the project was complete.

John-Michael with his salt dough ornament he made yesterday

Finally, Pinterest's idea!   Place one plate/ ornament at a time into the microwave for 2 to 4 minutes.  I decided....to be safe... We will start at 3 minutes!   The microwaves are placed in our school's lunchroom ... a good 25 feet or MORE apart.  Since I am on crutches, I stayed by one microwave ..and asked my own son who is in my class to start the 2nd microwave at 3 minutes.  2 minutes 20 or so seconds later, I see the microwave near me is exhaling large  volumes of black smoke.   So I quickly open the microwave and take the smoking ornament out!  Pintestest!  You were clearly wrong! LOL...  I look at the microwave 25 feet or more away from me..., it too is bellowing smoke.   Ughh... I certainly did NOT want to have a student open that microwave..even my own child...  So, with my crutches, I move as fast as a possibly could to the chimney of a microwave...certainly a funnnnnnny sight!   The two students with the two smoking (in a bad way) ornaments held it together...as I quickly had them start over creating new ornaments.   ..at 1 minute at a time.... for a total of 2 minutes!  Lesson learned!