Scented Play Dough

We've tried various play dough recipes, but today's was the best so far. I hadn't had cream of tartar on hand so I was looking only for recipes that excluded it. However, I think it's a huge bonus to use it! And just for the fun of it, I used some essential oils to make the play dough smelly. (I'm sure others before me have done the same, but I hadn't seen any recipes for it and I have a tendency to try essential oils in everything.)

Scented Play Dough Recipe

2 C flour

2 C warm water

1 C salt

2 Tbs vegetable oil

1 Tbs cream of tartar

Mix all the ingredients together in a pan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. It will be lumpy and look like mashed potatoes. When it starts to peel away from the sides of the pan, it is done. However, if it is still very sticky, cook it longer.

(Mine was pretty sticky but I couldn't really stir it to cook it any longer so I added just a bit more water and then cooked it again.)

Once it has cooled enough to work with it, place it on wax paper (or something like that) in 4-5 balls.  Here comes the fun part!

Make a little crater in the balls of dough.  Then add 4-5 drops of food coloring and 4-5 drops of essential oil*. ( I suppose you can use other things to color - like unsweetened drink mix; and other things to scent but this is what I used)

Fold the dough over on top of the color and oil. Continue to mash and knead it until the oil and color are evenly distributed and absorbed. (Use rubber gloves to avoid rainbow colored hands, if you so choose.  My hands are nice and colorful today!)

Add more color or essential oil, if needed. **

Today's scents: peppermint, lemon, lavender, eucalyptus, geranium

** Be careful, though, not to add too much oil.  Essential oils are very concentrated and you really don't need much at all!

Store in air tight containers. I placed mine each in a separate sandwich bag (immediately to keep the scent and moisture locked in) and am demanding that my children only play with one color at a time! (Maybe we won't have to make another batch of play dough in another day if they don't mix them and leave it out!)

* see my blog post (when I finally get it done...) on the benefits of various essential oils. Hoping that they work their magic on my kids while they are playing with the play dough...