Mimi's Play Dough

I came across a large canister filled with flour, and me being me struggled to just throw it out. Why throw it out you ask? Well, if I had to take a guess the flour in this canister was at least 6 years old and it was just plain ol’ all-purpose white flour which I don’t use anymore anyway, so…throwing it seemed to be the right option.  Well I sat staring at the flour thinking of all the things I could use it for (I even sent texts my friends to see if they could use it for anything), since it was too old to use for food my mind was instantly thinking crafts.  I thought of homemade modge podge, paper mache, salt dough…then I looked over at my son, sitting at the kitchen table sifting through his poor selection of play dough. My mind was made up…PLAY DOUGH! And of course my little helper was eager to help.

Now you can go on Pinterest and find oodles of different play dough recipes, but I am sticking with my mom’s recipe that she used when I was a kid. (I posted something a few years ago, you can see it here.) I am Gluten-Free, my son is not, and so making the dough using regular flour wasn't a concern for me. BUT, if you child is Gluten-Free then I would substitute the flour; use rice or even GF oat flour. I personally haven’t tried it using other flours but I would assume it would work fine.  (Here is a site called Creative with Kids that shares her gluten free play dough recipe.)

Mimi’s Play Dough

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

4 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tbsp. oil

2 cups water

Food coloring*

Mix all the ingredients in a large pot. Stir and cook over medium heat until the mix pulls away from the sides. Constantly stir! This is an arm workout.  (*If you want to have all one color, add the food coloring to the water and mix in while heating.  If you want multiple colors, once you take the dough out of the pot, divide the dough and knead the food coloring in.)

Once the dough is formed, put on wax paper and knead until smooth.  Store in an airtight container (nothing metal), you could even use old empty play dough containers.

He wanted multiple colors, and we were short on food coloring so the only color he wanted that he wasn't able to get was purple; maybe next time.  We added the food coloring in at the kneading stage, and I let him do the kneading.  You may need to add more coloring as you go if you want a more vibrant color.  

Now go play!

My top 12 of 2012!

The year is over, and I know I am a couple days late, it has been a long yet quick 2012.  I have made a couple life changes this past year which have made me stronger and healthier.  I accomplished my first triathlon, which I never thought in a million years (and probably anyone who knows me) thought I would ever do. I have completely changed how I eat, going gluten free has been a blessing.

So, I thought I would share my top 12 viewed posts of 2012 (in order from oldest to newest), thank you for following and listening to my rants, struggles and adventures! 

Adventures in Training #3: January recap & February Goals

Vegetable & Tofu Stir Fry

Recycled Crayon Disks

Antojitos: Mexican Pork Tarts

Super Chocolate Cake with a Homemade Fluff Icing

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

Moms Meet: Kashi Chocolate Soft Baked Squares

One Week Down: Gluten-free

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Soup

Sandy and Vegetable Quinoa Soup (GF)

My First Gluten-Free Thanksgiving (with recipes)

GF Stuffing

Sporty 3rd Birthday!

It's a soup kinda day!

Potato Soup - My top viewed post!

Looking forward to more in 2013!

GAK!

First of all, for those who don't know gak; gak is basically a cross between Silly Puddy and the Slime you used to play with as a kid.  It is slimy, stretchy, pliable, as my sons says "melty", it's wet but dry at the same time. I can be less messy then play dough (as long as you don't just let it sit on fabric or on a surface for too long, because it will "melt" onto the surface.)

The Recipe

2 - 4 oz. bottles of Elmers Glue (you can use the clear or classic, I used the classic)

1 tsp Borax

Warm water

Food Coloring

Pour the glue into a large bowl, fill the empty bottles with warm water, shake and pour into the bowl. Add food coloring (more that you think, I thought I used a lot but as you can see it isn't very vibrant.) Add an additional 1/2 cup of warm water, and the borax.  Stir into the glue mix, stir for a bit then get our hands in it.  Knead/blend until you can form a ball.  There will be a lot of liquid left in the bowl, that is normal.  Remove the glob ball, when it is not being played with store in a zip top bag or plastic container with a tight lid.

Ice Painting - another cooling outdoor activity

It is hot and my son wants to play outside; we set up the pool, slip-n-slide and filled the water guns but he wants to do more. I made ice paint earlier in the week so it seemed like the perfect thing to bring out.

My ice paint was simply, washable tempera* paint mixed with water then frozen. You could use ice cube trays or in my case I used my silicone Beaba baby food storage trays. I am sure you could also just add food coloring to water if you don’t have any tempera paint but it may stain. Make sure to use NON-TOXIC paint, if your child is anything like mine, the ice is sure to get licked or sucked and even used all over their body at some point during the use.


Each of the wells in my tray holds 2 oz. or 1/4 cup, so I added 1 tablespoon paint then filled it with water (leaving a little room at the top) and carefully mixed to combine. It is OK if some of the paint settles; it will just make for a more vibrant color when painting.

Lay out paper, and go at it. My son enjoyed rolling the paint across the paper. I would recommend finger paint paper or something thicker than just regular printing paper. Since the paint is mostly water the paper will get soggy pretty quick. I had a piece of mylar that I put out, the water puddled up instead of leaking through, which also made for some splashing. When you are finished, and if there is any paint left, simply refreeze to use later.

Beaba Baby Food Freezer Mold

Recycled Crayon Disks

If you have kids, you have crayons. If you have crayons, you have little pieces of broken crayons.

My son and I sat at his desk and sorted though his crayons and took out all the broken ones.  I remember doing this with my mom when I was little and thought it was so cool making my own crayons.  Now I know you can now go to the store and buy a Crayola Crayon Maker, but I don't have one so we are doing it how I remember!  I had/have a silicone muffin pan (and frankly I hate using it, it never seemed clean and just seemed like more of a hassle) so...I decided that it would be perfect for crayon making.  The mini muffin pan would probably be even better but I only have the regular so that is what we used.

 

We made adding the broken crayons to the pan like a game of sorts.  We separated them in to color categories, depending on the amount of broken pieces you could expand the categories. We had dark colors, reds and oranges, greens and blues, and yellows with white.  For some reason there were more broken yellows.  

Once they were all in the pan, I sent my son to play and I put the pan in the oven.  It was set at 350 degrees and only heated for about 10 minutes.  You just need to leave the pan in until the crayons are just melted.  Set aside to cool and harden.  Then I got my son and we took the "new" crayons out of the pan.  He first tried to take a bite of one, a little misunderstanding on his part...but I showed him and they were added with the other crayons.



Christmas Crafts with a Star Theme

Star Christmas Cards

I am always looking for some type of craft to do with my son, and this month I decided to try to get into the spirit a little more with star themed Christmas crafts. 

My son loves to paint, and I love that he loves it!  I covered our kitchen table with paper, gave him red, green, and white paint and let him go at it!  I also bought crayola glitter glue and gave him all but the turquoise. Using his artwork, we then cut the paper in to star shapes (that eventually became our Christmas cards), and into strips to make a garland. 

When we were finished with the table, I gave him cardboard stars.  This was an upcycle project if you will.  We have cardboard boxes at work that have dividers in them to hold rolled plans, and the person who worked in our print room cut the dividers into a bunch of smaller pieces that were about 5" x 5" when pushed flat, but have seams to fold into a cube. 


Cardboard Stars



Well I took the pieces (I was told I could) and cut them into star shapes.  My son and I, painted about a dozen.  They are now standing around our living room on shelves, and we even put a couple in our tree.  They probably won't last til next year so I may keep one, but the rest will probably just end up in the recycling bin. 



 

Star Garland (in front of door for clarity)



We also, used the cardboard stars to make a garland. Well this was more my project, I added some colored paper circles between the stars and threaded them all together. It actually hangs in the window next to our front door.

I don't have good picture but we also painted salt dough ornaments, my son did most of the painting, I just went back with the glitter glue and added a little.  The original plan is for the ornaments to be

Ornaments

decoration on the grand- parents gifts, and they still may.  I had a couple extra stars that I put on two of the gifts, so the third may have an ornament.  Because I was a little impatient, I dried the dough in the oven on a low temperature.  Well they bubbled up a bit so they didn't turn out quite how I wanted.  But everything was a lot of fun to make.

I am all about being creative through a mess, and kids should get messy.  It all washes off and out.  Life is too short to worry about spilled paint. 

Play dough

Growing up we always made our own, or my mother always made our, play dough. There is no reason to buy the containers when you can have fun with your child while making then playing with the dough. You can split up the batch and make it any color combinations you like with food coloring. Below is the recipe:

Play Dough

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 T oil
2 cups water with a few drops of food color

Mix all ingredients in a pot. Stir and cook over medium heat until mix pulls away from side of pot. (Make sure you stay with it) Put on wax paper or just on counter, and knead until smooth. Cool.

Keep in covered Tupperware ( I use zip lock bags) Not anything metal.

On a side note, it is safe to eat, but I would not recommend it.