We ran out of the store-bought playdough and decided to make our own. After reading through a variety of tutorials online, we settled with the following recipe...and it worked! 
Let us know if you have experience adding natural colors and scents to your playdough!
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1 cup water
Mix together in a pot over medium heat and stir constantly until it thickens up.
Now...regarding color and smell.
We added 1 teaspoon turmeric powder to the first batch and it came out a gorgeous, mustard-gold yellow! Ricky had the idea of adding lemon essential oil to it to make it smell good. The key is to add the essential oil towards the end of the stirring so that it doesn't disappear from too much heat.
Our next batch was supposed to be lavender or pink, so we added some leftover dye water from Brazilwood and logwood. Hmm....looks kind of tan and bland. Tried adding some copper granuals which started to blue it up, but the mixture was too hard. Also, it smelled funny! So, we tossed the second batch and decided that we loved the first batch so much, we didn't need a second color. We are going to do some more research about using natural plant extracts for dyeing playdough before make more.
Joey and Wilson got out some cookie cutters and played "Restaurant" with Mommy, making all sorts of pretend yummy things out of the playdough. We are storing the playdough in a Tupperware container and we've read that it's important to keep playing with it regularly to keep it soft. I don't think we can ever go back to store-bought playdough.
Let us know if you have experience adding natural colors and scents to your playdough!
12 comments:
We love homemade playdough too. One of our favourites is to add beetroot juice to make a pinky colour. And a dash of vanilla essence.
I've tried several times to make this. I'll have to try this recipe. Did it turn out sticky? My last batch did.
What a gorgeous color!
We add essential oil to our playdough too. I do it right at the end, even when it has started to cool, and find it needs quite a lot. I have colored playdough with beet juice for pink and red cabbage juice for purple. It's lovely...
Blessings and magic.
I loved natural playdough as a kid...and my kids love it today! Why would anyone buy it??? Thanks so much for following my blog!
Kim
ack...why haven't i tried this before??? this is going to be a must do for this winter!!! thank you for reminding me NOT to buy playdough anymore!!!
How fun! And, what a great idea to add scent...the lemon sounds great! We use to make dough but it was many years ago. This recipe sounds a lot better. :-D
ooh, we'll have to try this!
Homemade playdough is a favourite here too, thanks for sharing...
We like this recipe, but have added oil to make it more pliable and less crumbly.
Sounds like a lot of fun! I look forward to being able to try this, esp. adding EO's. I'm just afraid my little guy would try to eat it if it smelled like lemons-lol!
I second adding oil to improve the texture, it also helps it stay pliable longer.
If you have thick rubber gloves (so you don't burn your hands) you can also just add boiling water to the ingredients and knead it, rather then trying to stir it to the right consistency.
Beet juice works well for pinks
Red cabbage juice (red cabbage crushed up in water and strained) can change through all the colours of the rainbow depending on the acidity, so adding a squeeze of lemon juice or pinch of citric acid into the mix can yield some fun results.
We add eucalyptus or ti-tree oil for a nice smell and they also act as a mild disinfectant to stop it going mouldy.
Have fun with next batch, and thanks for such an inspirational blog.
October 2009 Family Fun Magazine says 3/8 cup Hot water and 1 Tbsp paprika for ORANGE and 1/4 cup cocoa powder with 3/8 cup hot water for BROWN. We're about to try it now!
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