Home Made Playdough

I needed to steam the carpets today, so I made the girls some home made play dough to keep them out of my hair.  It's a heluva lot cheaper than the shit at Wally World and you can whip up a huge batch in about 5 minutes.

You will need:

• 3 parts flour (any)
• 1 part salt (anything but rock salt)
• some kind of oil, canola, vegetable
• water
• vitamin E capsules (optional)
• Food Dye (optional)

Make the dry mix by combining 3 parts flour and 1 part salt.  In a separate bowl, mix water and oil at a ratio of 3 parts water 1 part oil to total about 1 cup if your dry parts(above) are cups.  A few vitamin E's squeezed into the mix will help lengthen the shelf life, and if desired should be added to the bowl of liquid at this time.  Also, if desired, food dye is best added at this time.  Alternately, for color, one might use a sort of vegetable tea instead of water above.  In my opinion, this decreases the raw shelf life of the dough.  Most of the plants listed as Natural Easter Egg Dyes will work here.  After you finish mixing all liquids, pour them into the bowl of flour and salt.  Mix with a fork until it gets clumpy and then knead into a ball.  You may need to add a bit more flour or water/vegetable tea at this point.  It should feel like regular play dough and taste like salt.  Best kept in the refrigerator inside an air-tight container like a zip lock bag with all the air squeezed out.  Depending on the temperatures in your area of the world, you may be able to dry your creations outside in the sun.  Let them get 'over-done' and make sure you flip them to let both sides dry.  Could take a day or a week.  You can also dry them in the oven at a low temperature like 225 F.  Here you should also turn them over and let them get over done, but make sure they do not burn!   After they completely dry, an hour or a day, you can paint them or seal them with varnish.

Some Ideas on What to do with PlayDough:

A blurry pic of some things creations about to go into the oven!

• Make beads by rolling dough into small balls and poking holes through with a toothpick.  Great for necklaces, ornaments, bead curtains, poppets, etc.
• Make an altar tile with a cool design on it like a pentagram or the Tree of Life.  Do this by placing a coloring page over some dough that you've rolled out to your desired thickness and poking holes along the lines to create a stencil for you to use on your dough.  Or if you have a bit of artistic talent you could free hand carve the picture of your choice.
• You can also use cookie cutters to make great shapes for Yule ornaments, Charms, and all other manner of nonsense.
• I've made offering bowls, incense holders, coasters, decorative tiles for hanging, little plaques, candle holders, and even little goddesses.

• Bits of Glass & Metal can be used in the before baking process.  In the after baking process, get creative with glue & paint & buttons & yarn & glitter & so on!

If you make something great, come back and tell me about it!  Or even better post pics!