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One of my favorite things to do is make seasonal play dough. The scents of fall – cinnamon, apple, cloves, spiced berries, brown sugar – all work well with play dough. Play dough is a great sensory activity for smaller children. Additionally, you can provide cookie cutters and other tools so they can make shapes using the dough.
In order to get a stronger scent on the dough, I used fragrance oils instead of essential oils or cooking spices. While spices would have made the dough edible (still would taste horrible) it didn’t give off enough scent. The essential oils didn’t give off enough of a scent either.
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Flour
- 1/2 Cup Salt
- 2 tsp Cream of Tartar
- 1 Cup Hot Water
- Food Coloring
- Fragrance Oils – Lagunamoon Spice Set and Lagunamoon Bakery Set
Instructions
Step 1
Add flour, salt, and cream of tartar (if using) into a bowl.
Step 2
Heat 1 cup of water
Step 3
Once the water is boiling remove it from the heat and add 4 or 5 drops of food coloring. I used red for apple spice, orange for cinnamon, and green for a Forrest earthy scent.
Step 4
Pour water mixture over flour mixture and stir. You can use your hand but I prefer to use a wooden spoon until the mixture isn’t as hot.
Step 5
Add 2 to 3 drops of the fragrance oil to the flour mixture to get the desired scent. A little goes a long way!
Tips:
- Cream of tartar isn’t essential in making play dough. Its main purpose is to make the dough soft.
- You can store the play dough in a zip lock bag or an air-tight container. The salt amount will help for the dough to keep for a long period of time.
- Add scents gradually. You can always add more but it is harder to reduce the scent.
- Watch small children closely when using play dough.