Homemade Playdough Fun

When my daughter first laid hand on play doh, it was love at first touch.  Her aunts, uncles & grandparents were only too happy to oblige her with play doh sets that came with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos to squeeze, mold and decorate the soft, colourful dough.  Pretty soon we were buying play doh refills since they dry out and become brittle after being exposed to the air for some time.  Then I discovered how easy and fun it was to make your own play dough at home and our lives were never the same.

ingredients for making your own playdough

The easiest, most foolproof recipe I’ve tried comes from this site.  (Be sure to check out her ideas on other play dough “flavours!”) The ingredients can be bought from your friendly supermarket, and the steps to making your own playdough at home are quite simple.  I just follow these instructions to the letter, and the finished product would look something like this:

Aren’t those the prettiest things? The best part is getting your hands on the warm, soft dough and kneading it into a nice, smooth ball. It’s very therapeutic.  Sometimes it will be stickier than usual (especially if you do this during the hot summer days).  When that happens, just pour some flour onto your surface and keep rolling your dough in it until it becomes smooth and less sticky.  I put the colors in, a few drops at a time, before the dough cools completely.  Experimenting with color combinations and other add-ons is the other fun part! Here are some of the ways we've had fun with play dough:  

A rolling pin and cookie cutters makes a very happy little pastry chef

Re-creation of the landscape of the Lorax movie

Cupcakes that are almost good enough to eat

Sadly, I don’t have pictures of our other playdough adventures and experiments to share with you.  But that only means there’s room to make more! The internet is full of playdough inspiration to steal and have fun with.  You might want to checkout:

 this mom’s monthlyplaydough themes

what we’re doing next, and its perfect for our outer spaceunit 

this family’s neat homemade Christmas gift idea

You see, the possibilities are endless, so is the fun!  Have you tried making your own playdough? Any playdough-making and playdough fun tips you want to share?