Homemade Playdough for your Child this Holiday

I love crafting with my two children, and our preferred approach is DIY where possible. We even decided to make our own play dough. It looked fun and we could adapt it as we liked.

After much research we came across a couple of recipes that were just for us. They combined the yummy smells of JELLO and the bright colours of food colouring.

Alongside the JELLO play dough we made our own scented variety. Armed with my personal belief in the healing properties of lavender we made different lavender scented play dough; Lavender and Grapefruit/ Lavender andPeppermint/ Lavender and Tea Tree and then just plain Lavender.

It was easy enough to find most of the ingredients except for the pesky Cream of Tartar. Now, Cream of tartar is NOT tartar sauce as much as the shop attendants would like to insist.

It is a white power usually used in cake decoration and largely found in the spice (not cake) aisle. After scurrying down many an aisle in different supermarkets, I found a supply in Chandarana ABC. If you don’t find it in the aisles, ask an attendant and if he says it is out of stock, ask to be taken to the shelf they usually put stock it — and lo and behold it will be there!

Also while in the shop, grab a pack of zip lock plastic bags to use for storage.

OK, so the dough is done. Now what? Apart from getting it squished into the corners of the couch (it washes off) and making a family of dough men, you can take out the cookie cutters and make shapes. Or you can collect a variety of outdoor treasures (leaves, sticks, stones, flowers) that can be used as indents on the playdough. Whatever you do, allow your little ones to help choose colours, and measure.

Let them help you pour and mix BUT leave the stirring over a fire to the adults! I found play dough becomes quite hot and tricky to handle and needs time to cool after making.

I really hope you enjoy this experiment as much as we have. It was quite a textural bonding experience.

Happy crafting!