The Grand Play-Dough Experiment: Salt Play-Dough

Most homemade play-dough recipes are variations on this most basic one.

Salt Play-Dough

Ingredients:
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water
2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of cooking oil

Mix the salt, flour, oil, & water together.

My addition: it was too thin to just play with, it needed to be cooked over medium heat for 2-3 minutes (or until it comes together in a soft, but not sticky, ball).

Initial impressions:
-Very basic
-Didn't become smooth even after kneading for many minutes
-Leaves a light residue, but wipes up easily
-Easy to make
-Sticks to fingertips something awful (maybe it needed to be cooked a bit longer)


2 weeks later:

I'm going to guess that I put it in the bag before it was completely cooled, otherwise I have no idea why this dough turned into a puddle of goo! I know this isn't what this type of dough normally does... so strange.


~Regina

Other posts in the play-dough experiment series:
Kool-Aid Play-Dough
Traditional (Baking Soda) Play-Dough
Coffee Play-Dough
Gingerbread Play-Dough

The Grand Play-Dough Experiment: Gingerbread Play-Dough

Gingerbread Play dough

1 C. flour
½ C. salt
2 tsp. Cream of tartar
1 C. water
1 tsp. Vegetable oil
lots of cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, whatever!

(This play dough is simply a slight variation of a standard salt dough.)

Mix the dry ingredients. Play with the spices until you get the scent and color you want. Mix water and oil together first and THEN add them to the dry ingredients and stir.

 In a pot, cook the mixture for two to three minutes, stirring frequently. The dough will start to pull away from the sides of the pan and clump together.

  Take the dough out of the pan and knead the dough until it becomes soft and smooth. Allow to cool and store in an air-tight container.

Initial impressions:
-Easy to make
-Good for having a little helper
-Feels like a standard salt dough
-Needs lots of kneading to feel smooth
-Smells amazing!
-Leaves your hands smelling great!
-Leaves a small amount of easily wiped residue.


2 weeks later:

-Firm and moist
-A rubbery, elastic feel when molded
-Only a very slight graininess from the salt
-Very smooth for a salt dough
-Still smells great
-Leaves a light residue on the play area and hands


~Regina

Other posts in the play-dough experiment series:
Kool-Aid Play-Dough
Traditional (Baking Soda) Play-Dough
Coffee Play-Dough

Rocket Ship Playmat!

I've been consumed with getting ready for our new baby. As of today I am considered "full term" so the baby is now welcome to come whenever he wants to! I don't expect him to show up for another 3 or more weeks, but to celebrate this milestone, I managed to finish the playmat I've been working on for him. Yay!

I stared off knowing I wanted to do a space theme and it just kind of grew from there.

The fabric I used for the front...well, it's actually a plain Aden & Anais muslin swaddling blanket. I loved how it felt and since I had 3 that had fun prints on them, I decided to do something with the white one. To stabilize it, I put plain muslin behind it, adhered the two layers with a fabric adhesive and then added batting to the back of all of that. Then I appliquéd through all three layers. It seems to have worked really well. I did add some extra stitching around the edge of the mat to help keep the loose-weave of the top layer from unraveling, but with the binding, I'm pretty sure it's very secure. I probably should have done more research on using this kind of fabric, but... *shrug*

 I love how the fire turned out!

 Watery world! This one was a challenge to appliqué.

 A ringed world!

 And a couple stars....

 ...I put 19 of them on the mat and they were such a pain to appliqué! So many corners and turning of the quilt!! I nearly despaired of ever getting them done. :)

 The quilt back ended up being the biggest experiment. I had originally planned to use a simple blue patterned fabric and quilt the whole thing together with stars (yellow thread). I thought that that would look great. But I couldn't find a fabric that 1) was wide enough and 2) that had a nice pattern. I even looked at plain broadcloths, but couldn't find the right color blue.

So I changed my plan and pieced together a huge star. I have never done any piecing before, much less something as complex as a star, so it was a challenge. The star didn't turn out perfectly, you can see that it's puckered here and there, but overall I'm pleased with it. Some of the other puckers you see in the blue fabric are actually star outlines--I stitched around some of the stars on the front to help quilt the back, but I couldn't do many because I didn't want to run over the big star on the back.

 I love the brilliant colors on the back, but my favorite fabric is the binding. It's a nice red, swirly pattern (from Robert Kauffman, if anyone cares) that is perfect for my space theme.

So the playmat is far from perfect but I am very, very proud of it. I hope it will be used for many years. :)

~Regina

(If I disappear for a while again, don't assume I've had the baby. I do plan to post when he decides to show up...I am, however, managing to stay busy or exhausted.)

The Grand Play-Dough Experiment: Coffee Play-Dough

Coffee Play-Dough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup used coffee grounds
1/2 cup cool coffee (more or less depending on how wet/dry the grounds are)

Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Knead until an evenly combined ball. Store in a zip-lock bag after play.

My ingredients.

 Mixing the dries.

 Adding the coffee.

 Kneading and checking out the texture.

 Lots of residue!

Initial impressions:
-odd texture for play-dough (but I believe that's the point)
-doesn't have a particularly strong coffee smell (may depend upon the grounds)
-leaves a significant residue on the hands, but not on the play surface
-nice that it's an uncooked recipe (so you can include littles in making it)
-easy to make

Our little girl loved rolling it out.

 But wasn't thrilled about touching it.

 Cookie cutters didn't work very well.

 After a bit of storage and play:
-My daughter doesn't like the texture, so she had me touch it when she wanted to move it or something like that. She did enjoy rolling it out, though!
-Very, very wet after storage! We had to add a lot more flour to make it playable.
-Didn't do cookie cutters well.
-Left residue on hands and play area.

Final verdict: won't be making it again. Some kids and people might love the texture, but we certainly didn't. Plus, it was messy.

~Regina

Other posts in the Play-dough experiment series:
Kool-Aid Play-Dough
Traditional (Baking Soda) Play-Dough
Gingerbread Play-Dough

The Grand Play-Dough Experiment: Baking Soda Play-Dough

This week I completed our evaluation of the Traditional Play-Dough recipe. Why it's called "traditional" I'm not sure because I had never seen a recipe similar to this one. It's just baking soda, cornstarch, water, and food coloring. Most recipes that I consider traditional are salt doughs, but that's just quibbling. ;)

Adding in the recipe here, since there are no guarantees that the link will work forever:

Traditional Play-dough

2 cups of baking soda
1 and a half cups of water
1 cup of corn starch

Mix with a fork until the mixture is smooth and boil until thick. Takes about 4 minutes.

It was super easy to make: just mix the cornstarch and baking soda (Note: I did a half recipe since we don't need a boatload of play-dough).

 Add water, mix well, add food coloring. My daughter requested orange play-dough (her current favorite color), so orange it was!

 Warm over medium heat until it boils. It will heat VERY quickly, I wasn't prepared for that and almost burned it. It came together extremely quickly. It took fewer than 5 minutes from mixing the water in and starting heating to the picture below.

I kneaded it and loved the texture, but I also noticed lots of residue left on my work surface:

 And that the play-dough's surface seems to dry out easily:

The drying slowed down as the play-dough cooled.

Summary of initial impressions:
-very easy and quick to make
-boiled at a low temp, make sure to not burn it!
-nice texture
-unusual ingredients
-outside dries out while sitting
-leaves a heavy residue on play surface that is tough to clean
-don't think it's going to last long

Week later:
-Nice and soft
-Smooth
-Kind of wet, but that may be from storing it away while it was still warm
-Leaves a LOT of residue; I feel like I have to wash my hands almost as soon as starting to play with it.
-Surface dries out a bit but not nearly as badly as at first (more humid day?)

Looking good so far! I am surprised, but pleased.

Almost two weeks later:
-It molded! Gah!!!! Nasty! Guess I either stored it wrong or it was just too moist. The recipe contains no specific storage instructions, but this might be one of the play-doughs that needs to be stored in the fridge.

Gross, gross, gross!! Into the garbage!

Final verdict: I do not plan to make this play-dough again. It left too much residue to be easy to clean up after, it still dried out a bit which just isn't nice to feel, and then it molded!

~Regina

Other posts in the Grand Play-Dough Experiment Series:
Kool Aid Play-Dough
Coffee Play-Dough
Gingerbread Play-Dough

The Grand Play-Dough Experiment: Kool Aid Play-Dough

My daughter has recently discovered the wonders of play-dough. I like regular, store-bought play-dough, but there are so many fun recipes out there that I thought it would be a travesty to not try at least some of them. So, I give you my eventual series of posts (assuming I keep feeling well): the Grand Play-Dough Experiment!

I plan to make a different play-dough every couple of weeks, evaluate it a bit the first week, then eventually update the post to include how long it lasted and final impressions of that recipe. If I do not evaluate an aspect of play-dough that is important to you, please feel free to leave a comment asking for that info. I will be happy to update the post as long as the play-dough is still fresh enough to be worked with (or I happen to remember the details you desire).

This week we made Kool Aid Play-dough. I will add the recipe here because there are no guarantees that links will work forever.

Kool Aid Play-Dough

1 cup water
3 teaspoons of Cream of Tartar
1 cup of flour
1 package of Kool-Aid Mix (any flavor of unsweetened)
1 tablespoon of cooking oil
1/2 cup of salt


Mix dry ingredients in a large/medium pan. Add water and oil. Stir over medium heat until it looks like dough. Whatever the color of koolaid used should be the end result. This takes about 8 minutes. This recipe is 100% edible and can be eaten immediately.

 
We used a grape packet...

 Warming the water.

 Newly mixed dough.

 After kneading a bit (I ended up needing to knead it for quite a while to get it to a good, consistent texture).

Initial impressions:
-easy to make
-other flavors of kool aid would smell good, but I can't stand the grape smell
-nice, deep color
-color stays in the dough (only very slight staining on my fingers during initial kneading)
-grainy, but improves with kneading and playing
-leaves a residue on the hands and play surface (but easy to clean)
-nice and soft

After playing a while:
- I CANNOT stand the smell of the grape flavor
-still slightly grainy after playing with it several times this week
-storing well at room temperature

A note from a friend who loves kool aid play-dough: "the 'blue raspberry' and 'lemonade' (or lemonade blends) of kool-aid packets do NOT work well, way way too sticky."

After two weeks of play and storage:
-Very nice, smooth texture. All graininess is gone.
-Smell is still there.
-Color is beautiful.
-Still soft and moist. Doesn't dry out during play.

After almost a month this play-dough is still going strong (and still smells, too!).

After 6 months, this play-dough has not yet gone bad. However, it has become extremely sticky. I tried kneading it in some flour and it remained pretty sticky. I think it's time for us to say good-bye to this play-dough. I'm sure it could be saved but it probably isn't worth the effort.

Update on 7/18/12: I have made this recipe several times and it has become my favorite. Our daughter loves mixing all the dries together and then watching as it changes color when we add the water. It's definitely a great recipe!

~Regina

Other posts in the Grand Play-Dough Experiment Series:
Traditional (Baking Soda) Play-Dough
Coffee Play-Dough
Gingerbread Play-Dough