Homemade Play Dough

I love making homemade play dough. It's cheap and easy to make and I like the texture and smell better than the store-bought play dough. It also makes an excellent and frugal gift!

Making your own means that you know exactly what's in it, so it's not such a big deal if the little ones taste it.

Making play dough can be a fun activity to do with the kidlets, especially those 3 years and older. It doesn't take very long to make and it can be played with as soon as it's finished!

Homemade Play Dough

 1. Combine 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon oil, 1/2 cup salt and 1 tablespoon cream of tartar** in saucepan and heat until warm.  You can add food coloring at this point, too, if you want the whole batch to be one color. My helper and I decided to wait to add the food coloring for this batch since we wanted to divide it and have several different colors. 

**Cream of tartar is what makes the play dough stay fresh longer, so resist the urge to leave this important ingredient out!

2. Remove from heat and add 1 cup flour.  Stir well. You may need to add a bit more to get a good consistency. For this batch, I added just under 1 1/2 cups of flour.

3. Pour mixture onto counter or table and knead until smooth. Poking it may be desired as well, especially if you are almost 5 years old!

4. Add food coloring at this point, if you haven't already, dividing dough into as many portions as you want colors. Knead the colors in and add food coloring until desired shades are reached. Natural food dye can also be used as explained in this post.

5. Play with your new play dough! Cookie cutters, small pans, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, plastic knives, small rolling pins and garlic presses are good play dough tools. Using tools from your play tool box is also pretty cool! Nothing like sawing that play dough right in half!

Mixing all the colors together for a marbled effect is also fun!

6. Store play dough in an air-tight container. It should last around 6 months.

Enjoy!

** This post is a part of Frugal Fridays!