My Journey As A Mother Of 4.: Summer fun Day 16! Glitter play dough!

I truly believe that no matter how old you get, play dough is ALWAYS fun. You just can't help but squish it in your hands, roll it into a ball, make snakes and food and of course a snowman!

It's even more fun when you make it yourself! I SWEAR it's more squishy and soft, than the store bought kind. And if your kids happen to eat a tad, on "accident" of course, then it wont hurt them at all.

We've made play dough before, but it has since dried out, and we have been playing with the store bought kind that always gets hard, way faster than any play dough, that I've ever made. So frustrating!

I gathered the ingredients, and my kids, and we got to making our own play dough.

(My youngest son, thinks smiling is when you make a GRRR face. We are working on this! LOL)

Play-dough recipe:

2 cups flour

2 cups water

1 cup salt

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 tablespoon cream of tartar

Food coloring

glitter (optional)

Mix all ingredients together (except coloring and glitter), stir over low heat, dough will thicken with time. When dough pulls away from the sides of the pot, it will start to form a ball. Remove from heat and kneed. If it is sticky, cook longer.

I had all the kid's pour, measure, and stir for me....I love making them read the recipe and figure out how much, of which ingredient we need.

We stirred it all up for a long time, until it started to thicken and make a doughy ball. Here are some visuals of the beginning, middle and ending product.

The kids were getting so excited, to make their play dough a different color! We set out wax paper for each of my kid's, so they could add the food coloring on their own.

The girls wanted to have purple play dough, so they determined they needed to mix red and blue food coloring. Nicholas wanted orange so he mixed red and yellow, and William stuck with his favorite...green.

We all added lots of food coloring to get the perfect color, the boys' play dough ended up super bright and colorful, but the girls turned out a little less like purple, and a little more like grey with a HINT of purple. That's ok.....they are happy with it and I didn't say the "grey" word once. If they think it's purple.....then it's purple darn it! ;)

We added glitter, which was a big hit. It was fun to see them pouring as much glitter as they wanted, and then folding it into the dough. They played with their new play dough for a long time. Making so many things, commenting on each other's creations and laughing like siblings should. These activities have really brought on some much needed sibling bonding. I adore seeing my kids work together, and lean on each other for support or encouragement, when doing something new. I've learned which kids to pair up together, according to who has been fighting the most. ;) It works.

I hope you all can make some super soft play dough, and add lots of fun glitter.....believe me, I know how horrible glitter is!! It's awful to clean up, but when you mix it with your play dough, there really is no mess. It just sticks onto the dough. Which means more fun for the kids, and less stress for you! ;)