Eco Friendly Play Dough

Oliver likes to play with play dough. No, that's not accurate. Olives likes to reenact terrible animal slaughters and brutal war zones, using play dough. My mom tells me that my sisters and I used to make cats and dogs with it - so she crafted up a few for Oliver to play with. He grabbed each of them and squeezed them to their death, then walked the misshapen blobs up the staircase and threw them down to a second death. So, he's a boy.

If you want to buy a great all-natural play dough we love this one. Clementine also makes awesome natural crayons. They're our go to craft supply-supplier.

But if you'd like to make your own and avoid the artificial dyes that usually come along with the recipe, you should try this tutorial that was posted by awesome Mommy-blogger Mommypotamus:

Basic Play Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 teaspoons cream of tarter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup of naturally colored water (see below) OR 1 cup water and natural food coloring

Instructions: 

1. Mix flour, salt and cream of tartar in a medium-sized pot
2. Add oil and colored water and stir until ingredients are well blended.
3. Place pot on the stove over low/medium heat. Cook the dough – stirring often – until begins to pull away from the sides of the pot (about 3-5 minutes)
4. Allow the dough to cool a little and then knead for a minute or so.
5. Store in an airtight container

Or, try this gluten free version:
 
Gluten-Free Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup rice flour
• 1/2 cup non-GMO cornstarch or arrowroot powder
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 teaspoons cream of tarter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup of naturally colored water (see below) OR 1 cup water and natural food coloring

Instructions: 

1. Mix flour, cornstarch/arrowroot, salt and cream of tartar in a medium-sized pot
2. Add oil and colored water and stir until ingredients are well blended.
3. Place pot on the stove over low/medium heat. Cook the dough – stirring often – until begins to pull away from the sides of the pot (about 3-5 minutes)
4. Allow the dough to cool a little and then knead for a minute or so.
5. Store in an airtight container

And the recipes for the natural colours:

Pink

I used: 2 cups water +1 cup shredded beets for the intense pink
3 cups water, 1 cup tightly packed purple cabbage simmered for 20 minutes for the light pink
Other possibilities: cranberries/ cranberry juice, raspberries, strawberries, red grape juice or beet kvass

Yellow

I used: 2 cups water + 1 cup packed onion skins
Other possibilities: grapefruit, orange or lemon peels, carrots, chamomile tea, celery seed, green tea, saffron

Yellow/Orange

I used: 1 cup water + 3/4 tsp turmeric for the bright yellow
1 cup water + 1 ½ cups shredded carrots for the orange
Other possibilities: carrots and paprika

Blue

I used: 3 cups water + 1 cup tightly packed purple cabbage + baking soda*
Other possibilities: blueberries
* To make the cabbage water blue rather than purple, simply add small amounts of baking soda until you get a color you like!

Green

I used: 1/2 cup of spinach + 1 ½ cups of water.
Other possibilities: kale, asparagus

Purple

I think blackberries would work. You could also try mixing red and blue.