Homemade Playdough

I got the idea to make homemade playdough with Jillian from Pintrest but all the recipes I would find called for either Cream of Tarter or Koolaid and we had neither in the house so I had to come up with my own recipe.  I looked online to see if there were any good substitutes for Cream of Tarter and several things said substitute lemon juice so that's what we did!

Jillian's Homemade Playdough

4 Cups All Purpose Flour
4 Cups water
8 teaspoons of Lemon Juice
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons salt
food coloring (I prefer gel color)

Mix all ingredients except the food coloring in a pan on the stove.  Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring frequently until the mixture dries up to the consistency of playdough. Our playdough was on the stove for about 15 minutes. 

Remove the dough from the pan and sit it on the counter to cool.  Once cooled divide the dough into sections for coloring, we colored our playdough four different colors. You might want to wear gloves when mixing the color in because it's easiest to do it by hand, I didn't have any gloves so my hands are currently multicolored!

You can easily cut the recipe in half or make an even bigger batch.  Our finish playdough almost fills up a gallon ziplock bag. 

Now it's time to play!  Jillian enjoyed using different kitchen gadgets to make me playdough food!

Rainbow Popsicle Dessert

I have no clue where I got this idea, I'm sure it was on another blog somewhere. 

Last week Jillian and I took two bags of the frozen popsicles in the little plastic sleeves (the kind you buy unfrozen) and divided them up by color.  We took one color at a time, opened them, dumped the popsicles in a bowl, mixed and smashed them up and then layered each section to make this yummy rainbow dessert. 

Jillian took it to daycare to share with all her friends.  That evening when I picked her up she said "Mommy, all my fwiends loved my dirt", for all of you out there that don't know 3 year old talk that says "Mommy, all my friends loved my dessert!" 

I suggest letting the finished dessert sit out for an bit before serving it, the kids ate it when it was about the texture of a sno-cone.

Heart Crayons

This year I have decided to make Jillian's Valentine's for her class.  I'm planning to make a two part Valentine, part to eat and part to play with.  Today we made the part to play with.

This was a great project for Jillian and I to work on together and she really enjoyed it!

First thing you will need is some type of mold.  I found my mini-heart shaped molds in the dollar section at target but I've seen many different shapes molds at different places (dollar tree has some sea animal shaped molds). 

Next you either need to go through your stash of broken crayons or you can just use new ones, whatever you prefer! 

I took the new crayons and scored the wrapper with a knife to make the paper come of easier.  Jillian's job was to peal the paper off each crayon. 

Once all the crayons are pealed you then break them into small pieces and fill the wells of the molds with the pieces.  You could do all the same color in the well or like us, mix different color combinations.

Preheat your oven to 250 and place the molds on a cookie sheet.  You then melt the crayons in the oven for around 10 minutes. 

Once the crayons are all melted take them out and let them cool and harden back up.  I left ours in the molds for about an hour before I popped them out!

I hope Jillian's friends love the crayons as much as she does, she has already taken over several of them!



Neon Whoopie Pies

Do you need an idea for something to bring to your kids valentines day party at school?  Are you wanting something "different" instead of regular cupcakes for a birthday party?  Why not try these cute (and tasty) Neon Whoopie Pies!

This recipe is SO easy.  All you will need is your favorite boxed vanilla cake (and whatever ingredients you need to make it), food coloring and your favorite icing.

First step is to prepare the boxed cake mix according to the directions and divide the batter into four bowls.

Now pick your favorite 4 colors from the food coloring and color each bowl of batter a different color.



Now spray your mini-muffin tin (regular could be used too) with a non-stick cooking spray and fill each well 3/4 full with one color of batter. 



Bake at whatever temperature your boxed cake recommends.  I cooked my cupcakes for about 15 minutes (just make sure when you insert a toothpick it comes out clean).


Once cooled remove the cupcakes from the pan and cut them in half. 

After you cut open all the cupcake put a layer of vanilla icing on the bottom part of the cupcake and then replace the top of the cupcake.  Now you have dozens of mini-neon whoopie pies!