Homeschool Family Project: Homemade Organic Play-Dough!

Play dough is always more fun if you make it yourself -- and that's JUST what we did!

**(Edited!! this post has been edited to reflect different changes I've tried since the original batch. I've put my edits at the bottom of this post.)**

A few weeks ago, I was rummaging through the craft shelves in the basement, and I came across a big dusty tote bin of unused Play Doh. We had purchased it several years ago, but I never did let the kids play with it because of my concern regarding the ingredients in Play Doh.

I chose to give that Play Doh away, and buy some 'safe' play dough online. But when I poked around online at all the 'eco-friendly' play dough, I was put off by the steep price, and the ingredients. They STILL contained chemicals -- planet-harming synthetic ingredients as well as toxic preservatives.

I decided to skip the exposure to dyes, chemicals and synthetic ingredients, and avoid all the awful disposable packaging and disposable containers, so I ended up not buying any of the 'eco-friendly' dough (which really wasn't eco-friendly after all).

Instead, we made our own! My daughter found a fabulous recipe which we tweaked a bit (shown below) for homemade play dough, so on a recent weekend, the entire family got busy whipping up some homemade play dough:


This stuff is fantastic! It's non-crumbly, super-smooth, pliable, chemical-free, and organic. And VERY eco-friendly!

Our first batch, we made four colors. We experimented a bit by making some with white flour, and some with my fresh-ground organic spelt flour.

We used plant-based food colorants instead of typical artificial food coloring, mixing the colors together to achieve great new hues.

We scented three of the balls with pure vanilla extract, and the yellow ball is scented with pure lemon essential oil. This dough smells SO good I want to take a bite out of it!

Making these colorful balls of doughy fun together was a very fun and very frugal family project. We had such fun mixing and stirring! And cost-wise, the four huge balls shown here cost us just a few dollars, and they'll last for weeks.

The kids are going CRAZY for this play dough, asking to play with it daily. It's such nice dough that I can't resist grabbing a lump of dough and playing right along with them...

Hubby has a little taste-test:

Green and Crunchy's Fabulous Recipe For Homemade Organic Play Dough:

(We made 8 times this recipe to create those 4 enormous balls)

1 cup organic flour

1/2 cup salt

2 tblsp oil (vegetable oil, safflower oil, coconut oil etc.)

2 tblsp cream of tartar

1 cup water

Coloring or scents are optional (but oh-so-nice!) and there are lots of possibilities

In the stand-mixer, we combined all of the above ingredients, including vegetable-based coloring and scents. When the mixture was well-combined, we poured it into a big stockpot, turned the heat to medium-high, and the whole family stirred constantly until stiff. Let it cool, and enjoy!

We store our homemade play dough in airtight containers in the fridge, where they should keep fine for several weeks.

EDITED TO ADD:
Okay, so the veg based colors (plant based dyes) DO work well, but they are costly (here at least).

So my very frugal family project was not so frugal after all when I used those pricey plant dyes. With 5 little playdough lovers in my house, I needed to find a cheaper way to scent and color that organic playdough, while keeping it safe for the kids to use.

After that batch, I began experimenting with cheaper ways to make organic spelt playdough. I found that essential oils make it smell DIVINE. Every ball of playdough now gets a nice scent added -- it makes my kitchen smell lovely while the playdough gets enjoyed by the kids :)

So, I used blueberries to stain a batch a nice purply-blue; I used beet juice (from steamed beets) to stain a batch a beet-colored hue; I used kale and spinach whizzed in the blender to make a nice green color; I used spirulina to make an INTENSE green color; I used turmeric to make yellow; I used paprika to make yellow-orange (and masked the smell with orange essential oil)...really the possibilities are endless and food does make some fabulous colors and it is so very inexpensive compared to the veg-based food dyes.

I store these balls of playdough in my fridge in plastic containers for 6 weeks or so before they start to smell a bit funky. Then I toss them out (in the compost!) and re-make fresh stuff.

Easy-peasy!
My 15 month old baby LOVES this homemade organic playdough! And when I see her sneaking bites, I don't worry a bit since all the ingredients ore organic and came from my pantry :) She can nibble away all she wants! (and she does)