Food Colors

The other day my little miss and I decided to have a go at making our own playdough. I’ve been meaning to do this with her for awhile, and we finally got around to it!

It turned out to be not only incredibly simple, but the best consistency playdough ever – better than store-bought for sure! We made two varieties, just for fun – glitter and scented. We got our recipe via The Imagination Tree.

2 cups white flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 1/2 cups boiling water (adding more in increments if needed)
Food coloring (I used icing dyes, which are oil based, instead of liquid food coloring since the colors are more vibrant.)

First, mix together all the dry ingredients and the vegetable oil. (My daughter was so happy about making her own playdough!)

Then pour in the hot water and mix up until a sticky dough forms.

I find the icing dyes give much more vibrant colors. And the glitter was just some plain old craft glitter.

At this point, you need to use your hands to knead it into the perfect playdough consistency. This is the most important part, so keep kneading it around until it’s right – it doesn’t take long. I tossed on some latex gloves for this step because this is when I added the food coloring. Definitely wear gloves for this part or you will have some REALLY vibrant stained hands! But don’t worry, once the color is thoroughly worked through, it doesn’t stain skin or clothes at all.

The finished products!

We decided to experiment a bit and make one into glitter playdough, and one into scented playdough. We started with glitter. This is really, really easy. Take some playdough (my missy picked the pink ball) and flatten it slightly. Pour bunches of glitter on it. Then knead THOROUGHLY. You really want to mix it all in to make sure the glitter stays in the playdough, and doesn’t constantly fall off. But once it’s worked in, you have awesome glitter playdough! It’s my little girl’s new favorite.

For our scented playdough, she picked the red ball. I added in some cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice and kneaded it all around. It did turn the red a bit brownish, but that’s just fine! It smells soooo delicious when we play with it.

I can’t recommend this recipe enough. It’s super easy, cheap, and the consistency is GREAT. Great enough that we threw out her other old playdough to replace it all with the new homemade kind! Enjoy!

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Ready to paint!

Chalk paint was our latest outdoor activity. My daughter just loves it! She likes sidewalk chalk very much, and the idea of being able to paint with it was quite an exciting prospect for her. We got our recipe from here via All Things Simple.
And it is definitely super simple! All you need is:

1 cup water
1 cup cornstarch
Food coloring

Mix the water and cornstarch together until fully mixed, then pour into whatever container you are using to hold the paint. Like the original post, I used a six count muffin tray. Also, I nabbed a 6 pack of small foam brushes from Hobby Lobby for a DOLLAR! I was pretty thrilled with that one! Once your paint is poured into the containers, add in the food coloring and stir thoroughly. I used a decent amount of food coloring (probably 5-6 drops per muffin cup which is a ton for such a small amount) but it makes the colors so vibrant when they dry!

My little focused painter.

While you’re painting with it, the colors seem a bit dull. But once it dries they brighten up and get that vibrant chalk feel! Also, if you let it sit for a bit, the cornstarch will start to separate, so make sure you re-stir your colors if the paint has been sitting for a little bit. And lastly, I discovered that using 3/4 cup each of water and cornstarch fills the muffin tin perfectly with no leftovers. Have fun!

Had to stop and pick a flower!