Play Dough Snowmen

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It has been terribly cold in Alabama the last several days. It's a cold that we are not accustomed to in this mild winter we are having. And it's a cold that is without snow. What's the fun in that? So this week we've made our own snow fun in various ways.

The first activity was a big hit with R. We made snowmen out of play dough and various crafting supplies. R had so much fun designing his snowman over and over again. 

Behind The Scenes:

I wanted to surprise R with some new winter themed play dough and I made a batch of my "go to" play dough. It wasn't white. Ooops. Apparently white flour isn't white enough and it was a dingy yellowish color. Definitely not the snow I want to play in. So then I did some experimenting. And then I did some research and tried other various recipes. I was left with a table full of play dough in various shades of white and various consistencies. And so, I present to you, my personal favorite recipe for snow play dough. 

1 1/2 cups cornstarch

1/2 cup flour

1 cup salt

1 1/2 cup water

3 tbsp vegetable oil (I used olive oil)

4 tbsp cream of tartar

Mix all ingredients in a pot and cook on medium heat while stirring. It does eventually turn into a dough while you stir. It differs from the other recipe I use, but it's still just as easy. Once it forms a sticky glob of dough, turn out onto wax paper and let cool. After it cools, knead the dough and add glitter if desired. We used a lot of fine white glitter. It was really pretty in the dough but didn't show up in the picture. 

This was my favorite out of the many I tried, but I still wasn't thrilled with it. It was pretty, soft, and easily molded but the texture was different and it dried out quicker. It was perfect for the activity we had planned, but it is not something I would make for any other reason. I'm just not a fan of using the corn starch, which is needed for the white color. All that being said, R was happy with it and didn't mention the change if he noticed it.

The Fun Part:

When R woke up, I had the best batch of play dough out on the table with a bunch of craft supplies. I had scissors, sequins, pipe cleaners, ribbons, googly eyes, gems, and other miscellaneous bits. He had a blast making and remaking his snowman. The possible combinations are many and he loved switching everything around.

 For his favorite he figured out how to give the snowman hands and how to make a top hat out of pipe cleaners. He carefully chose the colors for each item. He used googly eyes for buttons, a ribbon for a scarf, and another pipe cleaner for his nose. He used sequins for the face and took great delight in the snowman's round mouth. 

Play dough snowmen were a happy and entertaining success! Even with the work of making several batches of dough, it was worth it because it provided entertainment for quite some time. But if you'd like to take my word on the recipe, you could easily get all of this creative fun for around 10 minutes of prep time. 

What materials would you provide for building snowmen?

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