Wednesday, February 15, 2012

homemade play dough



My nephew's birthday is coming up so I decided to send him a little homemade play dough kit. I found the containers and the lunch box at the craft store. Everything else I had on hand. There are tons of play dough recipes online and they're all fairly similar so I sort of just picked one at random and it worked out rather well. There were two things I changed. The first was to add an extract to the play dough. I used lemon (it was a close call between lemon, lemonade and strawberry). This isn't necessary but the original scent made me gag while stirring. I also used coloring gels instead of regular food coloring which was a lot easier to work with. A friend had just given me a box of 8 different colors so I didn't even have to mix anything.  Tip: wear gloves when mixing the colors. Once it's in the dough it doesn't come out. But at the beginning of the process it does so you will have rainbow hands. If this is your thing, then disregard this tip.


I whipped up a little drawstring bag to store some googly eyes and mini cookie cutters to use with the dough. I figured the play dough would be fun with some accessories and also, what small child doesn't like to walk around sticking things in bags? 
I want to make this for more children. There is nothing more satisfying than rolling play dough around in your hands. It's texture is different from store bought play dough- it's more velvety and it stretches farther without breaking. Also, cooking it was pretty fun too. It's on the way down south right now. I hope he enjoys it.

3 comments:

  1. I love this idea! Easter is coming up and this might be what my niece and nephews get. Would you mind sharing a link to the recipe you used? And what color gels? I like the addition of googly eyes and other accessories. Too cute!

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  2. Easter would be a great time to gift this!
    I can't find the exact site anymore but here's a recipe that's pretty much the same. A lot of them don't include cream of tartar but I recommend it, it helps with the elasticity.

    http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-Playdough-Play-doh/

    I had this box of gels:
    http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3E30C97E-475A-BAC0-5A609FE5C5506685

    I think I ended up using no more than a 1/4 of a teaspoon for each ball. I just took a bit out with a knife, put it in the middle of the dough and started kneading it around in my hands. I added more if it seems a little dull.

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    Replies
    1. Awesome, thanks! I've never used color gels before, but I can see how they might work a little better for this kind of thing.

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