Make Your Own Playdough
Looking for a cheap way to entertain your kids or spice up a rainy day? Make your own playdough! The homemade stuff may not come in a shiny yellow play-doh container, but you probably have most of the ingredients in your cupboard already, and the concoction won't smell or contain yucky toxins. Hit the jump for the recipe...
Combine:
1 cup Flour
1 cup Water
1/2 cup Salt
2 tablespoon Cream of tartar
1 tablespoon OilCook until ingredients start to clump together. Turn out onto a plate or piece of wax paper, and knead in food coloring if you wish.
If the mix starts drying out, knead in a splash of water or whip up a new batch. Once you've made your doughy ball of fun, give your kids a few miscellaneous kitchen tools like cookie cutters, a rolling pin, or that mellon baller you got for a wedding gift but never use.
There are plenty of alternate recipes that use varying amounts of the above ingredients, and the kids don't have an exclusive claim on the fun. Some of your older friends may want to come over and get their hands dirty while enjoying a cheap bottle of whatever.
Creating your own play dough kit [Frugal Village]
(Photo: chanchan222)
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Comments:
We always dyed it with a package of koolaid so it would smell good and have a pretty color. Use off brand powdered drink mix for maximum frugality.
Another tag: Edible.
playdoh is non-toxic as well.
But I like the smell of play dough!
That's the trouble with make-it-yourself Play-Doh. It smells good enough to eat.
When I was a kid, our dog thought so, too, I guess, because we found all this blue/green poop in the yard....
What the...am I at Lifehacker?
You should add this to the article. You can add a packet of Kool aid to the mix while you're stirring it up, and it will turn into a brilliant color that won't get on your hands, and the dough smells unbelievably delicious. It's also a bit more fun than using plain old food dye.
Strawberry Play-dough? YES PLEASE.
I'm reminded of the salt-dough map I was forced to make of North Carolina when I was in fourth grade. Three colors for the mountains, the Piedmont, and the coast! The recipe was similar to that.
@Alys Brangwin is one smartass pawn:
I had to make one of those for Pennsylvania back in grade school.
I think my dog ate it. Literally.
@LordofthePing:
I'l second this. Not that you should eat it, but it's non-toxic, and made entirely out of food.
It's not very responsible, or fair, to suggest that regular store bought playdough is toxic. It's not.
That being said, it is fun for kids to make their own playdough at home. Part of the fun is making it. They are very proud of their creations.
It's 1974 again. Will somebody please provide instructions on how to macrame bread bags into purses, diaper bags and throw rugs?
@Patrick Henry: I have this feeling that toddler + strawberry-scented play dough = more trouble than it will be worth to me.
Pfft. I save my money and make my own Play-Doh at home. It's easy, it's fun, and you don't have to deal with all the --
Wait. It doesn't work with this one...
@ChuckECheese: That's odd that you mentioned that, My Mom and I have been thinking about knitting old plastic bags together to make purses. My mom told me about doing such things in the 70's but I never believed her! lol.
Not only is Play-Doh non-toxic, but also, please don't use the word "toxins" if you're being serious because that's one of the buzzwords used in advertising for bullshit ripoff products like homeopathic "medicines" and the like.
@croush1211: @Andy misses his 360 :(: I'm pretty sure he meant it as a joke. And as I reader of lifehacker, I appreciate it.
@_catlike_: for edible, my mom used to make peanut butter playdoh. i don't know the exact recipe but obviously, don't use the chunky kind
My grandmother used to make this stuff for me 25 years ago. It keeps for a few days if you put it in the fridge in a sealed container. It tastes a bit salty too, so only a dedicated kid, like I was, would ever try to eat it.
@ChuckECheese: I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing this trend. After all, HGTV is not that much different from all of those old Time Life books with directions (all with requisite dark walnut stain). Even the NY Times recently had an article on the increased number of emergency room visits and other injuries from newly minted DIYers.
As a preschool teacher, I was amazed when I found out how many parents had NO idea this could be made at home. The first time I made it with my class, I came home to 15 emails from parents asking for the recipe!
@LordofthePing: YUCK. Unless you're eating it straight from the pan, how could you eat something that you've been rolling on the floor. Even when I was a toddler, I knew that was gross.
@Julia789: Seriously, I'm glad someone else noticed this little bit of yellow journalism. er, "yellow blogalism"?
My mom made this all the time for me when I was a kid, way back in 198#$(#(@. It's a lot of fun.
My mother made the cornstarch/salt version, it was less sticky: [www.ehow.com]
And it's super salty to discourage kids from eating it.
What weight oil should I use? I tried 10W/30 and the kids hated it.
First of all, what everybody else said about the toxins bit.
Secondly cream of tartar is semi-hard to find. Also it is pretty expensive in small quantities. You can't use tartar sauce and you can't skip adding the cream of tartar since then the dough gets all cracked.
If you want to let your kids make Marshmallow Fondant:
I'm pretty sure I also used crisco (vegetable shortening) when I made it but that link has great step-by step pictures. I think the crisco version is easier to mold without cracks, but it has been a while. Make a bunch of colors and then let your kids make stuff with the dough. Then they get to eat it, and it is like super sweet marshmallows, I know not healthy but whatever.
Just don't make a peppermint flavored ball, that one ends up tasting and feeling way too much like toothpaste and no one will eat it.
@tcolberg: "Even when I was a toddler, I knew that was gross. "
LOL, what. Toddlers put crap in their mouth all the time. I think you're giving your toddler-self more credit than he/she deserves, man.
Play-Doh tastes like salt. mmmmmmmmm......
I don't have Cream of Tartar in my house. Can I just scrape it from my teeth?
@bluewyvern: Heh. Maybe you could concoct a recipe with homemade soup, or oil from that home-performed oil change?
@mzs: Cream of tartar is in every supermarket I've ever seen. McCormick's and other spice folks have one in the spice displays.
My daughter's preschool makes play dough all the time and adds different fragrance, like lemon, etc
@JulesNoctambule: If you're going to overdo it on the sodium, you might as well do it whilst you're young.
@Julia789: According to this post, Hasbro says it's only bad for kids with gluten allergies (I have a peanut-allergic nephew, so I look at these things). However, every time I see the word "proprietary," it makes me wonder what magical chemical is involved.
Saying that something is non-toxic isn't the same as listing its ingredients to assure you that you know what's in it.
My mother does this all the time for my niece. It takes no time at all and she never has to worry about going to the store. The food colouring makes it fun.