It?s hard to believe that less than six months ago my son refused to even touch play dough. Now it is his favorite craft activity. I usually have two or three colors of homemade play dough at any one time, but for a playdate I made extra ? and added glitter!
Here is my go-to recipe for homemade play dough:
- ? cup AP flour (plain flour)
- ? cup water
- 2 tbs salt
- 1 tsp cream of tartar
- 2-3 drops food coloring
- EXTRA: loose glitter
Method:
- In a saucepan (preferably nonstick), mix the first four ingredients together so the mixture is as smooth as possible. It is OK if a few little lumps remain. Then add the food coloring and stir to mix thoroughly. Add more coloring if required.?Stir in as much glitter as you would like.
- Heat slowly, stirring regularly. As the mixture starts to thicken, stir constantly. Soon it will begin to start to pull away from the sides of the saucepan and form one lump. This takes about three to five minutes.
- Remove from the heat and place the play dough ball on some parchment paper. Let cool and then knead until it is smooth and soft.
- When completely cool, wrap the dough in the parchment paper and store in a Ziploc bag in the fridge. It lasts for months!
Note: If you want to make several colors then I would recommend doing the heating and stirring part one color at a time – as each dough needs your full attention!
For the glitter dough playdate I first made purple playdough with purple glitter. Then I made pink playdough with silver glitter. At the last minute I made a third batch and didn’t color it at all, but added bright pink glitter. The effect was pretty awesome!
We had a crafty playdate with two girls who I know *love* pink, purple, and all things glittery! They absolutely loved this play dough. I provided some tools and some googly eyes so that they could make animals or monsters. E (5 yrs) made these two creations ? just look at that sparkle!
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L (3.5 yrs) shows us a scary monster. And also one that she made from the dough. ;-)
My son (F) got to play with the ?dough later and made a snake-monster!
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How fun! I love that you add the googlie eyes, the monsters are great (play dough and otherwise)! Would be perfect for a Monsters Inc or Monster U playdate too! Looks like a fun play date!
Thanks Laura! We had a great time!
My daughter would LOVE this! She thinks everything is better with glitter on it. :)
I think your daughter is right, Karen!
I like the purple snake!
I love make-at-home craft products – especially ones like this that you can make in your regular pots and pans… everything in it is edible (if not tasty).
Love the colors and the glitter!
Homemade play dough, glitter and googly eyes? My idea of heaven!!
Thanks Cathy! It was so easy to make as well!
We just had a play dough play date with our friends, but yours looks much more successful. It was our first time playing with play dough and I think the recipe was a bit off. I am going to try yours! Everything is better with glitter, right?
Absolutely! I’ve done several variations of this dough over the last few months and it’s always worked out well. It keeps really well too.
That is some awesome playdoh. My girls would love all of the glitter.
I’ve never thought of adding glitter before! What a fun touch!
I love it! Great idea.
I love that the glitter is so visible. Very pretty.
What a fun idea! I got Nick Play Doh for Easter and he wasn’t a fan. Maybe we should try it again.
How old is he, Elizabeth? My son hated it for months before he became a convert!
He just turned two at the end of April, so he wasn’t yet two when he got it. I think part of his problem is he hates getting stuff on his hands. He holds them and says “icky” until you wipe the off. :-)
Aww he’s just a few weeks younger than my son! He’s completely gone off painting at the moment so I’m glad we have dough to keep him crafting!
BTW I love your blog header with the interactive blocks!
Awww thank you. I can’t really take the credit though because my husband is my designer. The idea to have them up there was mine, but he did the rest. He’s very proud of them. :-)
I just had to come tell you that I tried the Play Doh again and my son loved it! We had to go out and by toys to use with it. Thanks for the push to try it again. :-)
wooo those eyes make a big difference!!
that is so cool! What a fun craft!
Oh, how fun! :)
Love the glitter idea! I made edible playdough last year but I’ll have to try this one this summer!
If it wasn’t for the glitter this recipe would be edible too!
The glitter makes it so much more fun!
What an awesome craft!
Super cute craft.
So easy and fun!
Elizabeth that is such great news! That’s made my day! :-)
Hey there, i just found your webspace here via Craftulate! I am so super excited to have found this post especially! I have tried & failed, tried & failed, tried & wasnt super satisfied with a literal TON of PlayDough Recipes I have found on line. All of them seemingly “so simple” right? Not really for me. Hey,I am no great baker or mathematician, so when I continued my “Re-Search and Destroy” for more playdough recipes, I became much more apprehensive about diving in, with the teeny-tiny budget I have for squeezing in crafty kids stuff like this…This recipe i hope will save me because I can no longer afford dumping out pounds, cups, n more cups of worst made playdough ;( because yours here has a SMALLER AMOUNT of ingredients! Not to say the other recipes do not work= I do not work well with them lol! Thankyou for splitting this in a smaller batch as I said i’m no mathematician lol! I am so excited to give this a try, RIGHT NOW!
Im soooo excited! IT WORKED!!!! After months of trying this worked!! Yay!! Thank you sooo much for sharing! I had a wee bit help from another site to convert the CREME de tartar into a proper lemon juice measurement but this worked!!! MY daughter and I deeply thank you! For whatever reason this worked! Thanks SOO much
Jeanine I’m so pleased to hear that it worked!