homemade play dough

My kids were going to their cousins birthday party last weekend that I could not attend, so I needed to come up with a gift to send with them to the party. My first instinct was to run to Target and buy a gift but I had no idea what to get a three year old boy. Plus I really wanted to get creative and involve my kids as well. Lets face it Target doesn't scream creative, and being the frugal momma that I am, I was sure that there must be something that my kids and I could create from home that would be special and save us a few bucks. So I started thinking and thinking and thinking and was like "I cant give this kid a homemade basket of marinara and cheese, he is not going to appreciate that". Being a former pre-school teacher I was sure that I should be able to come up with something fun. After thinking about it for a while it finally hit me: homemade play dough!

Of course each of my kids wanted to make some and having six kids we ended up with six different colors. We put each color in its own cute little mason jar and headed to the dollar store to get some kitchen essentials for creative play dough fun! We found a cookie sheet, a pizza pan, a pizza cutter, a potato masher and a cutting board all for $5. Score!

My insecurity got the best of me at the beginning and I was wondering if this would even be a good gift or if it would just look, ya know, frugal. After finishing the gift for my nephew all my kids (ages 2-12) begged me for their own set of play dough. You know it's a good gift when your kids want one too!

Such a fun experience to share with my kids and a great gift too.

Here is the original recipe we used (I actually doubled this recipe):

1 Cup of Water
1 Tablespoon of Vegetable Oil
1/2 Cup of Salt
2 Teaspoon Cream of Tartar
1 Cup of Flour
Food Coloring (We actually used liquid water color paint instead of food coloring)
Pot

Directions: In a pot I added all ingredients (except the food coloring) and stirred over medium low heat. Keep stirring until it forms a dough ball, this took several minutes. Remove from heat and place the dough on a cutting board and let it cool for a couple minutes. While still warm I divided the dough into six sections and placed each section into separate bowls. I squeezed a few drops of each color into each of the bowls and let each of the kids knead the color into the dough until the desired color was achieved by my kids standards. Although the red never really passed the test - it remained pink.