Summer Crafts

With summer upon us I'm sure you're all trying to figure out fun activites for your children.  We've been spending much of our time swimming but some days it's just too hot to step outside.  On those days we stay in and work on crafts.

Two of our favorites are home made Play Doh and dyeing noodles.  Both are simple and fun to make and provide hours of entertainment for little ones.

homemade Play Doh

 Ingredients:

3 c. flour

3 c. boiling water

1-1/2 c. salt

6 tsp cream of tartar

3 TBS oil

food coloring

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together flour, salt, cream of tartar and oil.

2. Add boiling water and mix well. You can knead dough on floured surface until no longer sticky (do not add too much flour or dough will dry out).

3. store in air tight container or ziploc bags.  (I re-purposed the containers our lunch meat came in...)

**I added different extracts to ours to make them smell good - coconut extract to our blue doh, peppermint to our red doh and orange extract to our yellow doh.


Dyeing Noodles
Ingredients:
ziploc bags
any style noodles (we used bow ties, wagon wheels, and elbow noodles)
rubbing alcohol (and lots of it!)
food coloring

Directions:
1.  Double the ziplock bags because they tend to leak if you don't.
2.  Place noodles in the ziploc bag (just one kind or mix 'n match) and then fill bag with rubbing alcohol. 
3.  Add food coloring (more or less depending on how light or dark you want your noodles).
4.  Leave noodles in alcohol filled baggies at least overnight.  The longer you leave the noodles in the liquid the darker the color will be.
5.  Carefully drain the alcohol liquid and then place noodles on a baking sheet covered with wax paper to dry.  Once they're dry you can play with them alone or make a craft with them.

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