Rainbow Play-Doh

Unless you’re a preschool or Kindergarten teacher, day care provider, or you have other small children in your life – children, grands, nieces or nephews – this post may not interest you. (Just giving you a warning!)

Amelia and I were playing with some of her play animals today, and the wolves got hungry. The two largest went off to “battle,” and came back with Captain Hook (from her Jake & the Neverland Pirates Lego set). To keep the wolves from eating all the people in the village, Amelia decided to make Play-Doh food for them.

Sadly, Amelia also does not always put lids back on her Play-Doh, so it was a little sad. I did some research on how to refresh Play-Doh, and it looked like more trouble than it was worth. Below that search was “Make Your Own Play-Doh.” This sounded like a lot more fun.

How to Make Your Own Play-Doh

First, I’m fairly sure I have won the award for “Most Uses of the word Play-Doh in One Blog Post.” For the most part from now on, it will just be dough, because it really isn’t the trademarked product.

Here’s the recipe for the dough.

2-1/2 c water
1-1/4 c salt
1-1/2 Tbsp cream of tartar
5 Tbsp vegetable oil (I used canola, and it was fine)
2-1/2 c flour
food coloring (or Stampin’ Up!® Classic Stampin’ Ink Refills)

Mix all ingredients except the food coloring in a large saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently. When it looks like Play-Doh, it’s done.
Let the dough cool a bit until it’s cool enough to work with. Add color.

We started with about 10-12 drops of ink refill per color. As we mixed it in, we added more as needed.

What We Learned from Our Experience

First, you may want to wear gloves while mixing the color. Amelia did not want gloves until after she mixed the Real Red dough. I suggested we start with Crushed Curry, but she wanted to start with red. So she has Real Red hands today. I used gloves and still have a few spots of Pacific Point.

Second, I didn’t have white salt. I only had pink and black salt. We used pink. I’m not sure if you can tell in this photo, but our dough is a little on the pink side. I’m thinking black salt dough may be hard to color.

It colored ok, though. And I know these aren’t the colors crafters usually use for a rainbow, but Amelia picked the colors.

We used Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry, Pear Pizzazz, Pacific Point, and Highland Heather refills. The recipe we used made enough for all six colors. Most of each color fit in an old Play-Doh container, with a little left over, so it makes a nice amount of dough.

This was a great experience for both of us. I had so much fun watching her mix all the ingredients. I helped measure, but she mixed. She also stirred a little while we were heating it (with lots of supervision). Once it started turning into dough, I took over. And, of course, she did all of the color mixing. I only helped a bit at the end of each color, just to make sure we didn’t have any stray ink.

Miss Amelia is now happily playing with her new dough, mixing colors and creating letters and numbers, and having a fun tactile experience. She is having a blast. And the wolves are now munching a lovely dough pizza, which is much better than an old pirate, don’t you think?

Thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy. Have a lovely day!

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