THE TOOLS
MATERIALS:
- 2 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 2 TBSP Oil (Coconut, vegetable, canola)
- 2 Cups Hot on it’s way to warm Water
- 4 TSP Cream of Tartar
- 3/4 Cup Salt
- Dutch oven or large Pot similar + Wooden Spoon/Spatula
- Cutting board to knead dough and add coloring
- Cookie Stencils/Cutters
- Stove (Adult supervision recommended) (NOT PICTURED)
- Food Grade GEL Coloring (found at my grocer) (NOT PICTURED)
- Chopstick/Skewer (NOT PICTURED)
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THEME: BEST PLAY+DOUGH
ART LINGO: Clay, modeling, shaping, kneading
APPROX TIME: 30min+
LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: Any Age but assistance will be needed for under 7/8.
It was my 3 year olds Birthday this month and I knew just what the party favor was going to be…. A little container of Rainbow magic sparkly marbled play+dough (See the goods in the first photo below). I kid you not it was a huge hit!!!!!!!!! Not only was it super cost effective (container, Dough, cookie cutter shape) cost me less then $2.50 each, I also didn’t need to run to a bunch of different places gathering goody bag gifts that kids only play with for 30 seconds before they break. The kids were excited, the parents were glad it wasn’t candy and I felt good knowing that me and my daughter made them together for her party…..winning all around!!!
If you don’t know…… Homemade Play dough is the best, it smells good, it feels good and it’s literally so cheap with just a few ingredient (most I am sure are in your pantry now) and In this house we go through play dough! We play with it almost every day whether we are making spicy fruit tacos (my three year olds request) or building giant animal creatures we can’t get enough of this colorful moldable mess. I love showing my kids not only how to use something but how it’s made and this project is just that: A super fun 5 ingredient art project of what I believe to be the best DIY play dough out there (And I have tried ALOT of them). This recipe is light and fluffy and just the perfect play dough consistency.
You ready to get to it?? COME ON AND SCROLL DOWN WITH ME
STEPS
Step 1:
Measure out Flour, Salt, Cream of Tartar, Oil and VERY Warm water and mix all together in a dutch oven or large pot to form a gooey paste(See Photo 1).
Place on stove and set stove to medium heat. Begin Stirring constantly (time for your arms to get that workout) for about 5 minutes, Feel the burn….it will be worth it :)! Around the 4-5 minute mark you will begin to notice your gooey paste start turning into a nice dough ball, keep stirring until the dough no longer sticks to the bottom or sides and begins to form a rounded ball form, remove from heat at this stage. (See photo 2)
*Don’t worry if some of the dough sticks to the pan….we don’t need it and you can try to scrape it and use it but you will have enough to work with your larger dough ball that we can discard these small scraps.
Step 2:
Transfer Warm dough ball to a bowl or cutting board to cool, it shouldn’t be too hot but just be safe and use caution when transferring it from the pot to the bowl. (My 3 year old helped me with this step so our batch was not very warm) (See Photo 3)
Once it has cooled down but is still warm begin kneading the dough by folding it in half then folding it in half again (See photo 4). Keep kneading it until it becomes super soft and pliable and no lumps or bumps remain.
Step 3:
At this point divide your dough into 3-5 different sections (See photo 5). For her party I wanted to have at least 5 colors to marble together so I divided my dough into 5 smaller doughs. Once you are here press down with the palm of your hand to make ‘flat pizzas’ as we like to call them to prep them for colors.
Grab your gel colors (Don’t use liquid food coloring, it will make your playdough too wet and will become sticky). We went with the Teal/Golden Yellow/Pink/Navy color palette so we could make sure to have the primary colors and then those would make some fun secondary colors in the marbling stage. Add a few swipes of one of the gel colors using a chopstick or skewer if needed (Mine came in jars not tubes so I needed them) (I did 3-4 wipes on each dough). (See photo 6) Wipe your skewer off completely and move onto the next dough section + color.
When you are ready fold your dough pizza in half making a dough taco (food imagery helps our little ones recognize what shape something is) to lock in the color so it doesn’t go all over the place (See photo 7) Begin kneading the dough by folding in half then flattening then folding in half again until the color has saturated the entire dough (See photos 8 & 9). You know you are ready when you have no more color streaks in your dough.
*At this point I rolled my dough in glitter because we have too much of it here and I just love the magic of it!
Step 4:
Here is the fun part, the magic of marbling part! 1) Go ahead and pick 3 colors to work with and roll those out into long snakes (See photo 10). 2) Braid the snakes by twisting the three colors together and then fold in half (See photo 11). 3) Roll the folded up snake braids into a Ball and then repeat steps 2 & 3 until the desired effect is achieved (See photo 12 & 13). We ended up doing this 3 times until we really had some great color going on.
When Finished let your kiddos PLAY!! Grab some cookie stencils or some clay tools and explore this colorful bright marbled dough (See Photo 14)! When you are done playing with it, wrap it up or store it in an air tight container, It will last for months!
I hope you have as much messy but good fun making this as we did!
See you next month friends! Stay Creative!
xx
Mrs. K!
