Because here, we take our playdoh seriously.
My kids take their time with playdoh completely seriously. Which for us is super awesome. Hours are spent every week at our kitchen table. Imagining, creating, laughing, and building. It’s time the kids really play well together. They make stories together using their playdoh. Copy each others’ creations. Then make new ones. Time when laughter comes easily. It is heavenly.
I take making playdoh just as seriously. We go through A LOT of playdoh. Kade seems to lose about 1/10 of her playdoh every time she plays. And by lose I mean drops it on the floor. And by dropping it on the floor, that really translates to mommy has to sweep the floor 4 or 5 times when Kade plays with playdoh. That part is not so heavenly!!
Because of this, I would never buy store bought playdoh anymore. To pay for it, then be sweeping it up…. NO THANKS. Plus, it gets pretty hard after a few days, and doesn’t go through all the toys easily. THAT translates into mommy has to sit and play with playdoh to help make the swirl cones. THAT is also not so heavenly all the time!
So I started making playdoh. A stranger at Walmart gave me a recipe and I made it all the time. The problem was the playdoh stunk and went moldy pretty quick. Putting kool aid in playdoh is not the answer for coloring. I tried to make the recipe a few times without the kool aid, adding more flour but just couldn’t get the consistency right. Way too sticky, too soft, then oops – rock hard. So I texted my sister to get her recipe. Which she didn’t have after moving. So I did what she told me and googled cream or tartar playdoh recipes.
There are so many recipes out there. SO MANY. So I went through them and got the general feel of the ingredients, and the different ways of adding ingredients. And then, I experimented. Different smells, different ways of adding ingredients, different ingredients. And then, the unthinkable happened. I found one that worked!!
This recipe is easy and fun, and makes for rather elasticy but really soft playdoh. The kids absolutely love it. I love it. AND best part? Very few crumbs on the floor!!!
So here is what I did. In a pan I heated up the water and salt together over med heat for a couple minutes. Whisking. When I didn’t add the salt and heat the water together, there seemed to be too much salt and when playing with the playdoh there was salt all over the kids hands and stuff. After it heated for a couple minutes I added the cream of tarter, vanilla, oil and cinnamon. After stirring that quickly I added the flour, mixed with a spoon and it was ready. Most recipes said to let it form a ball, but really it took about 10 seconds to stir as the ingredients were hot and the flour made the mix dry almost right away. I stirred it until there was no liquid left (still spots of flour in it). Then left it for a few minutes to cool. Once cooled enough to dump it out and form into a ball I put it in the freezer to cool more quickly. Once cool enough to knead I broke it up into a few balls and added all the colors my kids wanted. 1 recipe makes 2 good size balls of playdoh. You can add the color to the water at the beginning. As my kids like having lots of colors, I knew I wanted more than one color to a batch, so I did it at the end!
food coloring
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
2 tbs cream of tarter
2 tbsp oil
1 cup flour
To get the ‘ok’ from the kids on smell I added about 1 tsp cinnamon (maybe more – Kade was dumping it lol) and some vanilla. We just kept smelling and dumping until the kids liked it 
It’s a good recipe! Hope you try it out, because any time we as parents get to ourselves is COMPLETELY worth it!
I love making playdoh. You can make any color, and it only takes minutes. It is the best stuff to have around in our house. Super funny that I shocked Rohan by saying some people buy it at the store. He was totally amazed that you could get it there 
