Homemade Play-Doh

    

     During the first day of our 12 Days of Easter Countdown, my "Little Bug" and I discussed the name of Jesus - its power and meaning.  Being that my "Little Bug" is not yet 2 years old, I opted to do a very basic activity - PLAY-DOH!!!  (We used cookie cutters to cut out Play-Doh letters to spell out Jesus' name.) 

    
     "Bug" had never played with play-doh before and so I didn't have any on hand.  No problem!  I just hopped on to Pinterest and did some searching.  Turns out there are dozens of homemade play-doh recipes out there!  And it only takes about 10 minutes to make! - That's INCLUDING clean-up!  WHAT!!!???!!!  Seriously???  You mean I could have been making play-doh all these years???  (By the way, I would have been playing with homemade play-doh long before I had ever become a parent if I had known how easy it was to make.  In fact, Little Bug is in bed and I'm seriously considering getting some out right now!  There's no stress reliever like beating on a mound of Play-Doh.)

    
     Most of the recipes that I found were very similar - calling for only flour, water, salt, vegetable oil, cream of tartar, and food coloring.  It was only the amounts of the ingredients that varied.  So, I just settled on one recipe to try first.  If it hadn't turned out well, I could have easily tried another.  Luckily for me, this one was FANTASTIC!  No need to try another recipe!  This one was great!
    
     The best part - I knew EXACTLY what was in it!  Just like most small children, my "Little Bug" was very curious to taste this new toy.  But since everything in it was edible, I wasn't nearly as freaked out about that - which also meant I wasn't stressed out - which meant I could relax and enjoy the bonding time with my "Little Bug."  ;) 


Homemade Play-Doh:


1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vegetable oil
food coloring

1.) In a large pot or frying pan, mix all ingredients.  Cook over Medium heat, stirring constantly - just until the dough starts to stick together and form a ball.  (It took between 3 and 5 minutes for this stage on my stove.)
2.) Snatch dough from pan and place on wax paper.  Let cool slightly. (While my dough cooled, I rinsed out my pan.  It rinsed out pretty easily with hot water and the sprayer on my faucet.)
3.) Once cooled slightly, knead for a few minutes to get the dough smooth.
4.) Store in an air-tight container.


Note 1 - I used about 12-15 drops of red food coloring for this batch.  It came out sort of a beautiful taffy pink color.  You could also divide the ingredients in half and cook in batches.  That way you could have more than one color of Play-Doh.


Note 2 - Don't have food coloring on hand?  That's OK!  Use Koolaid!!!  I haven't done this yet, but I've heard that it colors beautifully - and it smells INCREDIBLE!!!  This may make your little one desire to put it in their mouth, but then again, all the ingredients are edible so that's not really a problem.

 

 

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