All Natural Play Clay

Marmee taught preschool for many, many years, and used to make homemade playdough for us, all the time! - I forgot how easy and fun it is! Plus with homemade... you no exactly what's in it No worries about funky ingredients or toxic colorings! So, if some ends up in your curious toddler’s mouth.... it's perfectly fine! (though the taste probably won’t be much to her liking)

The October 2009 issue* of Family Fun Magazine recently contained an excellent recipe for All Natural Play Clay. I especially like this one, because you don't have to have cream of tartar on hand. ... nor do you have to cook anything. And since there is no stove involved... children can be part of making it too!

The other part of the article, that really caught my attention, was the tips on coloring the dough, using common [natural] kitchen ingredients, such as cocoa powder, beet juice, paprika or turmeric! Hmm...I wonder what other colors we could figure out...? Perhaps, blueberry juice for purple... ??

*if you happen to own a copy of this magazine, the article can be found on page 18 of the issue.)

Ingredients
1 C flour
3/8 C salt
1 T vegetable oil
Natural Dye (see below for colors)
Directions
In a bowl, combine flour and salt. Pour in oil & natural dye and stir well. Knead dough for a few minutes. If clay is too soft, add a bit more flour. Store the clay in air tight containers in the refrigerator.
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Natural Dye:
Brown: 3/8 C plus 1 T hot water, 4 T cocoa powder
Fuchsia: 3/8 C hot beet juice
Orange: 3/8 C hot water & 1 T paprika
Yellow: 3/8 C hot water & 1 tsp. turmeric

• Here’s a link to the online recipe. It’s almost the same as the magazine recipe, but the magazine recipe included a tablespoon of vegetable oil too... as well as those natural dyes I mentioned! :-)
  
• In light of the season, this is one I definitely want to try... a recipe for Pumpkin Pie Play Dough... Mmm!!
  
• Arm & Hammer even has a cool pdf where you can get ideas on how to use your play clay. Their version is slightly different but if you want a little longer lasting it would work too. Click HERE for that PDF