Rainy Days and Playdough

Today was one of those rainy days - a glorious, cloudy fall day that wasn’t too balmy or cold. Perfect for putting on the raincoat & boots to go outside and discover the wide, wide world. Feel the rain on our faces, stomp in puddles of water and send boats made of leaves floating down the “river” rushing by below the curb.

Only we didn’t.

I’m not sure why. I only know I didn’t think of it until I heard the rain falling once again on the roof as we went through our nighttime routine. I guess the morning just escaped me, I was a little sleep deprived and still getting over my cold. Next time.


What we did do is make playdough. I decided it was a great day to make play dough! We’ve made playdough a couple times already – with perfect results. But today didn’t go as smoothly. It’ seems now that Harrison has done some cooking with me, pumpkin pie, oatmeal cookies, quesadillas; he wants to taste everything. All. The. Time.

Measuring out something as simple as a cup of flour has become a challenge with Harrison repeatedly dipping his finger in the flour claiming, “Mmm, it’s good Mommy.” Between Harrison’s finger-dipping and trying to remember that I’m cutting the recipe by half, I added too much salt – way too much - and not enough red food coloring. (Red being the color of choice today) I got a grainy batch of pink playdough.

Well, I wasn’t satisfied with my failure and proceeded to make a second batch – with red tempra paint and without Harrison. (He was finished with this project and was off munching on carrot sticks.)

Ten minutes later and too much paint yielded a nice sticky batch of cherry red playdough. Just not my day for playdough. I added a little flour, kneaded it some more and called it a day.

Here is how it all came out. The pictures aren't the best so colors are off; bu you can see the pink gritty playdough and cherry red smooth playdough.


Harrison is happy.

And for the heck of it I’m sharing the recipe.
It yields enough to fit onto a ziplock sandwich bag. And if you have more than one child, double the recipe. (just remember to double ALL the ingredients!) Oh, and DON’T USE BLUE tempra paint.

In an old saucepan, boil 1 cup of water
In a large bowl, combine 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of salt and 1 tbsp Cream of Tarter
Mix ½ tbsp oil and 1 tbsp food coloring or tempra paint into rapidly boiling water and pour quickly over dry ingredients
Stir carefully and knead into playdough

Have fun!