Homemade Playdough With Natural Colors

April 22, 2011 by The Smyths 2 Comments

     Our boys love to play with playdough, but I think since we started making and coloring our own, they like to make it even more than they like to play with it.  It is so much fun to make colored playdough at home!

It all started a little over a year ago when I started adding a mix of powdered herbs to some of our smoothies and drinks.  Some of those powdered herbs are so brightly colored, especially the beet root powder!  Some of them also smell wonderful, like the orange peel powder.  So, we decided to try using some of those herbs to color our homemade playdough and were very excited by the results.

TO MAKE PLAYDOUGH

You need:

2 cups flour

2 cups water

1 cup salt

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

4 tsp. cream of tartar

Simple process:  Mix all ingredients in saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until ball forms (or until stiff enough to knead).  Knead until smooth.

TO COLOR PLAYDOUGH

Choose 4 or 5 powdered herbs that are bright in color.  You may want to have these ready before you make the dough as they seem to mix with the dough better when it’s still warm.  We used the following:

Beet Root Powder = fire brick

Bilberry Powder = purple

Burdock Root Powder = light brown

Spinach Powder = sea green

Orange Peel Powder = golden rod

            Scoop 1 to 2 Tbls. of each powder into separate cereal bowls and divide your dough between the bowls (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of dough per bowl).  You can vary the amounts of powder and playdough to make lighter or brighter colors.  Just have fun experimenting! 

We store our playdough in ziplock bags and it lasts about 4 – 6 months, depending on how and how much it gets played with.  Hope you have as much fun as we have coloring playdough someday.

Blessings,

Carrie