Hi all, Amy here….I’m sure many of you have memories of making homemade playdough as a kid. I have some very vivid ones. When we lived in Menlo Park, outside of San Francisco, my mom had a very good friend, who we will call Mrs S. Her husband was Dutch and they had a handful of kids {I think 5 or 6?}. I also went to kindergarten with their oldest son {who was probably my first crush ever, ha!} and we spent a lot of time over at their house.

One of my favorite times there was making homemade playdough with Mrs. S. She had a huge stockpot and we would spend all day over there, mixing, dyeing, kneading and in the end we would all walk away with about four or five ziploc bags of playdough in a rainbow of colors. What I loved the most about this playdough was the smell. Oh my word, it smelled heavenly. I knew we weren’t supposed eat it, but I remember sincerely wishing I could, as it reminded me of pizza dough for some reason. ha.

Anyway, I have been wanting to make playdough with my kids for a while now. I have been seeing recipes pop up on pinterest, and I a week or so ago, I found one that sounded about right to what we did as a kid {HERE}. This labor day, on a whim, I decided to try it with my kids. We were all still in our PJ’s, which I thought would be perfect to a messy project. As I started to prep it, I realized I did not have as much salt as it required…so I hunted around and found this recipe, which I had the ingredients for.

• white flour – 1 cup
• salt – 2 tbsp
• cream of tartar – 2 tbsp
• cooking oil – 2 tbsp
• warm water – 1 cup
• Jello – 1 3oz pack

Here is where I insert a disclaimer: I know this is supposed to be a kids project. Either I am a horrible mom with no patience whatsoever, or else my kids are just too young for this, but I would suggest doing this SANS kids. Or at least with one kid only. Mine starting fighting right after this picture over who would stir and it got kinda messy. Just an FYI. ha.

Next we poured all the ingredients in a saucepan and turned the heat on med/high. Let me tell you, you will get a minor arm workout. ha.

At this point, you want to take it out and lay it on pieces of wax paper with a little flour and let it cool. It is very hot. I would suggest letting it cool at least 20 minutes. We didn’t really have the patience and therefore we had some very hot fingers.

Right around this time I realized something was wrong. It was extremely sticky and just never got playdough texture-y. The kids were a little frustrated that it kept sticking to their fingers. I was also annoyed as I realized this was making a HUGE mess. ha.

So I clean them up and sent them outside, where they helped Daddy clean up the yard.

And I proceeded to try it again. And you know what I realized?!? I FORGOT SALT the first time around. Right. So lesson learned, don’t forget salt, it will not form up. ha.

Two very nice balls of the most delicious smelling playdough ever! ha. It really does smell amazing and I didn’t have deal with the food dye which is so great!  Do you have a playdough recipe you like to use with your kids? Share with us!