Homemade playdough - A wonderful recipe

 We made some homemade playdough today.  Playdough is pretty much Tessa's favorite toy, and we go through it fast around here.  So rather than buy it in a can, I thought I would make up a big batch, or two, or three by the time the "big" kids got involved.  Here is the recipe and you will love it if you try it.  It is soft, pliable and it smells decent and not too salty though the kids knew better than to eat it.  It really has great texture.

1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/4 cup salt
1 Tbl. vegetable oil
2 tsp. of cream of tartar
1 Koolaid packet, any flavor

 Combine and mix in a bowl all the ingredients. It will have the consistency of pancake batter and may have a few lumps though I tried to get as much of those out as possible.

 Scrape the batter from the bowl to a pan.  On medium heat, start stirring and don't stop until the batter clumps together into one huge ball.  Here is it below almost done.  All of the bits on the edge of the pan should easily stick to the ball as well by the time you are done.  My pan looked clean and I had a big lump of playdough around my spoon.

 It'll be hot when you take it out, but I was still able to knead it into a smooth ball.  The texture is so soft and squishy.

 Each child wanted a batch of course, so they each picked out their own Koolaid flavor.  Ainsley's dark red left a little bit of stain on my hand when I kneaded it fresh out of the pot, but it didn't leave any on Ainsley's while she was playing with it.

 By the way, what do you think of the red contact paper tiles?  I'm still debating and may peel the paper back off.  I had them on the wall by the sink for over a year and no one EVER guessed that it was contact paper.  It looks like the real deal. But a roll of contact paper cost is only $5.  Now that's an easy DIY. I still have a couple spots that are missing the red, but they're tricky to cut so I thought I would make a final decision first.  I have such a cookie cutter builder's grade kitchen that isn't really "me", so this is an attempt to put my own stamp on it.  If it were up to me, the cabinets would be white and I would have a concrete counter top.

 We have a big bin of playdough toys.

 I bought some snap top containers at the 99 cent store a couple days ago.  They seal very nice and are the perfect size for these playdough batches.  Try making some.  It was such a fun afternoon activity.