Tag Archives: easy

Soft Play Dough

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Over the holidays we tried a different kind of play dough at home, a very fragrant soft dough using only two ingredients. Now, I’m not sure where I saw or heard of this combination to make play dough originally, but a mum from playgroup had mentioned it recently, only not the quantities required, so we did a bit of trial and error.

I used blueberry and coconut conditioner that we had in the bathroom (technically it was L’s, but it was the nicest smelling stuff we had at the time…) Oh, and it was a cheap conditioner despite the lovely smell, so it kept the cost of our little experiment down.

After mixing and adding and mixing some more, I came to the conclusion that the consistency was pretty good somewhere around one part conditioner to two parts cornflour. However, it still seemed a bit closer to slime than to dough, as it just wasn’t all that great at holding its shape. I did try adding more cornflour to the mix, but the boys declared they liked it as it was. I chose not to add any food colouring as the dough became a very pale blue from the colouring in the conditioner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both boys enjoyed the sensory experience, of the touch and smell of the dough. They squeezed it, and poked it, rolled it in their hands and stretched it. I did have to stop T2 from playing with it after a while though because he kept eating it (despite many warnings and admonishments, and what I can only imagine was a terrible taste!) T1 continued to play with the dough for quite a while, fascinated at the way it felt and moved in his hands.

It kept for a couple of days covered, but it was starting to dry out a little by then. It was fun and easy to make, so we would probably make it again.

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Gum Leaf Bookmarks

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Every house seems to have a sock-eating monster, but I think our resident sock-eating monster has a mate that only likes to eat bookmarks! It’s the only possible explanation 🙂 We like making bookmarks, and we even have a special holder for them, yet every time I want a bookmark, they all seem to be MIA. So here we go, making more bookmarks!

A and I collected some large, dry gum leaves from under some of the the big gums nearby. We looked for reasonably flat and undamaged leaves. A found a very pretty pinkish leaf that she liked.

IMG_6152We used permanent metallic markers to write messages on the leaves. The girls worte “Merry Christmas” on many of the leaves, and then signed their names, so that these bookmarks could be given to their teachers as part of their end of year presents.

We had to wait for the metallic ink to dry completely before laminating the leaves. I managed to get about three leaves to each laminating pouch. After the laminating was done I carefully cut around the leaves, making sure to leave a border of sealed laminate around each one.

These unique bookmarks were quick and simple. They were well received by the teachers too.

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