Homemade Play Dough

We all know how it works.. Kids absolutely adore play dough but the cost and mess of the store-bought kind just isn’t worth it. And not to mention the little containers you buy at the store dry out so quickly! After tossing yet another poo-colored tub of play dough {my boys enjoy mixing all of the colors together to form a lovely brownish color…}, I decided that I would try to perfect my own homemade play dough recipe that would be fast, easy and inexpensive to make at home!

Gather your supplies:

3 cups flour {regular white is best for mixing coloring into}
3 cups warm water
2/3 cup salt
6 tsp cream of tarter
4 tsp oil
large cooking pot
cookie sheet or parchment paper
food coloring, if desired

Step 1: Combine all ingredients (except food coloring) in large pot and torn burner on low heat.

Step 2: Mix ingredients in pot. Mixture will be runny and lumpy.

As the water cooks out, the play dough will come together and get ‘doughy’. A good tester of whether it’s done or not is that if you take a pinch and it molds, it’s done! If it is still sticky than it needs to be cooked more..

Step 3: Pull the solid mixture out onto a cookie sheet, parchment paper or cutting board and knead until smooth. If you are not going to use food coloring, you can knead the dough on the countertop but just be cautious when using dye on stainable surfaces.

Now, if you are not adding any extras to your play dough, like food coloring, than you’re done!

If you do want to spice up your play dough a bit with some food colorings or glitter than now is the time for that.. Make sure to check out my homemade food coloring post on how to make the red coloring I used for this batch of play dough! I was a bit bummed because I should have used plain white flour to start with, instead of brown. It was more difficult to color because I was trying to dye brown dough so next time, I will make sure to either make more coloring or use white flour!

Since I was making this particular batch for Valentine’s Day fun, I chose to add the red food coloring and some glitter accents! First, add in as much food coloring as you want to get your desired color. Knead the coloring in until mixed. Then add in whatever accents you like. The glitter was a bit difficult to mix because it wanted to fly all over the counter.. But I finally got it all together and I think the end product {aside from not being as pink as I wanted} looked great!