Treading the waters: Playdough Recipe with Essential oils!

I woke up this morning with every intention of cleaning my house and doing several loads of laundry. In the last few weeks my house has flooded and we went on a family camping trip. I still have piles gathered either from the flood or from camping. Twenty minutes into cleaning I was out of breath and my stomach muscles were tired. I blame the stuffy nose on pregnancy hormones and the tired stomach muscles from being 30 weeks pregnant! I quickly readjusted my expectations of the day. I thought "Maybe I can just get the camping stuff out of my dining room and do a few necessary loads of laundry." I was laying on our study/homeschooling room floor resting when I saw Kylee in the hall upset from a recent fight she had with Morgan over fair wings.

It was then that my eyes were averted to our bin of craft supplies and once again the focus of my day changed. I thought "Maybe I should add in some quality time with the kids". Kylee and I started talking about what we could do for our craft and after several minutes of searching the web we decided to make playdough! Of all the things I had planned for the day this was not one of them but it sounded like a much better alternative than the things I had planned anyway. :) So to avoid further fights and contention we headed off to the kitchen to make playdough! I figured if I was going to be doing it I might as well document it and blog about it. Of course my counters were filled with life happenings so I had to clean them off in order to make room and get a nice picture of course!

In life there are always trade offs and today I decided that instead of washing all of my pots and pans by hand they were going in the dishwasher for a faster clean up and some time with my kiddos! Thank goodness for a dishwasher. So what do you need to make play dough?

Supplies Needed

Oil, Salt, flour, cream of tartar(I used baking powder), food coloring and water
Also a pan and something to cool the play dough on I used wax paper but a plate would work

Playdough Recipe

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar (I used 1/2 tsp baking powder)
1/2 cup of water
1 Tbsp of cooking oil
Food coloring
6-8 drops of essential oil (optional)

Directions

In a saucepan combine flour, salt and cream of tartar

add in the cooking oil, food coloring and water and mix until smooth.

At this point you can add in your essential oils or wait until you knead the dough. I added lavender oil and decided to add red food coloring to turn the playdough purple. Turn on the heat to medium-low and stir until the mixture forms a ball.

It was at this point that I had lost the interest of the kids and they went and grabbed their already made Play-Doh.

Once the mixture has reached the consistency of playdough you can remove it from the heat and allow it to cool for about 5 minutes.

If you didn't add your essential oils in the saucepan you can now knead them into the dough, or you can omit this step. Since my kids had been fighting earlier I decided to use lavender oil which has a calming effect. I loved the smell of oils in the playdough and so I couldn't stop there. Plus what fun is only one color of playdough? Kids love citrus oils so I decided to use some wild orange, lemon and lime.