What's Cookin...Oh just some Play-doh

#1 LOVES to play play-doh.  I'm not the biggest fan because it is an activity that #2 cannot do and really cannot even be out when #2 is awake due to the mass amount of debris that ends up on the floor.  Somehow a half hour play session results in enough Play-Doh crumbs on the floor to fill at least two containers.  Which isn't the biggest deal, except for the fact that #1, like all 3 year olds, lacks the ability to sit still.  Thus, the mass amount of minuscule pieces of Play-Doh on the floor end up suck to her socks and tracked around the downstairs.  Plus, after about 5 minutes I get bored of the stuff but #1 likes me to sit there and assist.  For quite some time #1 has been begging me to make Play-Doh from scratch-ever since she saw a video of it on You Tube.  #1 must have watched that video on repeat 10 times a day for weeks, but we never made Play-Doh because what seemed like a very important ingredient, cream of tartar, was never on stock in our house.  Really, I'm not even sure what it does and I'm certainly not the type to have fancy ingredients around the house. I actually only had the stuff on hand because it was an ingredient in the French vanilla cookies I make as favors for the girls' birthday party and my mom thought it was necessary and bought it.  And really, a can of Play-Doh is like $.50 it's definitely not worth the effort (or mess) to make it.  But, this week #1 was sick-nothing major just a cold with a low grade fever, which according to the doctor didn't even count as a fever because it was so low-and I was more than willing to indulge the poor little sick thing.  Nothing is more pathetic than a sick child!  So, using a recipe I had been saving on Pinterest we cooked up our first batch of Glitter-Doh.  I'm by no means a kitchen scientist and i got my recipe here http://thecreativemama.com/how-to-make-glitter-playdough/ and followed it to the tea.

First step the ingredients...#1 loves to help so usually what I do is measure everything out all at once and line them up and let her pour them into whatever vessel we are using.

The ingredients:
1 Cup of flour
1 Cup of Water
1/4 Cup of Salt
1 Tbs of Vegetable Oil
2 Tsp of Cream of Tartar (whatever this is)
Food Coloring-We used a little bit of red as pink is #1's favorite
Glitter*

*Generally my favorite glitter is Martha Stewart's which I absolutely love!  The fact that it is so fine makes it look amazing on any project, but it's also quite pricey.  For this project I happened to have on hand a large container of cheapo craft stuff that is probably 1/8 the cost of Martha's stuff.  I'm pretty sure it was left over from about a decade ago when DH was in law school and played softball and I used to make terribly inappropriate and cheesy signs for him.

Next my little helper getting everything into the pot and mixing.

The next step was for me as it require our mixture to be cooked and constantly mixed while on the stove.  This was my least favorite part.  It took about 5 minutes and clearly my arms are not in shape to be stirring that long.

And of course the finished product...

#1 was super into this and loved playing with it.  The smell wasn't horrible but not all that great either.  I think if we do this again I will go with the Kool-Aid method to give it it's color and add a pleasant smell.

Two notes on this:

1) The glitter gets everywhere when you are playing with it so if you don't want to deal with that mess skip the glitter step.  Since, I always need to do a quick sweep and table wipe after Play-Doh it wasn't a big deal to me, but if you have a Play-Doher in your house who is neat and no clean up crew is required afterwards-skip the glitter.

2) This recipe makes A LOT of Play-Doh.  The original blog I read suggested dividing up the recipe and making different colors.  To me it's still too much and cutting the recipe in half would be fine.  Though, if you have more than one child playing with this, it's a great amount to divide among 2 or 3 kids.