DIY Play Dough

As a kid, I absolutely loved playing with playdough. I would sit at our dining room table for hours making snakes, noodles, snowmen, flowers, and anything else I could think of. We had all the gadgets, with my favorite being the little press that pushed the “noodles” out. I would serve my mom and brother play dough spaghetti and meatballs for lunch. There was just something memorizing about all the colors and the fact that I could let my imagination run wild. I loved all the shapes and the way the play dough felt. What I didn’t like was the smell. To this day I still dislike it. I have a solution for that smell with this awesome DIY playdough recipe.

This recipe is super fun because it’s something the kids can help make and give as gifts to their friends. We made some for our neighbors to put in their Christmas basket that gave last year and it was a huge hit. Playdough was on Daslyn’s teachers wish list a year or so ago so we made it as a gift for the class as well.  It’s also really fun because you can get creative and customize it with the scents and colors.

Here’s what you need:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons cream of tartar

1/2 cup table salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

10-15 drops essential oil (your choice of oil and you can add more or less drops depending on how strong you want the scent)

1 1/2 cups water

food coloring

Heat the water until it boils. While waiting for it to boil you will want to mix the flour, cream of tartar and table salt together. Next, add your essential oil to the vegetable oil and mix those into the dry ingredients. Mix well and slowly add the boiling water to the flour mixture, pouring slowly so you don’t burn your self and so you can watch the consistency of the play dough as you stir. I didn’t end up using the full 1 1/2 cups water in mine. Once it’s at a play dough like consistency you can kneed the dough. This part was really therapeutic for me and brought me back to my childhood.

If you are adding food coloring to your playdough, you will want to separate the dough so you can use different colors. Today, my kids helped and they chose blue, green, and purple.

Adding Essential Oils

I chose to add Thieves oil to our playdough. Thieves is known for it’s amazing cleaning powers and spicy scent. I love using Thieves in my homemade cleaners so I thought that Thieves would be an amazing choice since several hands will be using the playdough and playdough gets filled with so many germs. You can read more about Thieves Essential Oil here.

Another great idea is to choose different oil for the different colored playdough you make. For instance purple play dough could be scented with Lavender (imagine a nice calming atmosphere while your child(ren) quietly sit down playing with playdough), Lemon for the yellow, Citrus Fresh or Orange Essential oil for orange playdough, Peppermint essential oil for green, the list goes on and on.

I am so excited to make more of these to entertain my kiddos during the summer when they complain they are bored! Make sure you store them in an airtight container. You could use something as simple as a plastic zip top bag or recycle old playdough containers.