How to Make Homemade Plastic Play Dough

Making homemade plastic play dough is a fun craft for kids.  They will love turning this play dough into jewelry, beads, paperweights, toys, figures, or whatever else they can dream up.  This is a stretchy, moldable play dough that is very easy to make.  It uses ingredients you have in your pantry like flour and cornstarch.  It dries quickly and turns to a hard, plastic like finish. Let's get started!

Step 1:  Gather your supplies.  You will need white glue like Elmer's glue, white flour (not self rising), cornstarch, water and food coloring.

Step 2:  Mix 1/4 cup of white glue with 1/4 cup of water in a small bowl.  Mix it until it is well blended.

Step 3:  Add a few drops of food coloring to the glue mixture.  Use the food color of your choice.  Mix the food color in until it is well blended.

Step 4:  In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of cornstarch.  Stir with a fork until the flour and cornstarch is well blended.

Step 5:  Add the flour/cornstarch mixture to the water/glue mixture and mix until a stiff dough is formed.

Step 6:  Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it with your hands on a floured surface for about 3 minutes.  You can sprinkle flour on your hands so the dough will not stick to your hands.

Step 7:  Now your plastic play dough is ready to be molded and sculpted into whatever creations you want to make.  To make a good surface to work on, tape some wax paper to your table and make your creations on the wax paper surface.  This plastic play dough dries quickly so you will want to make your creations right away.  Keep in mind that the thicker your finished creation is, the longer it will take to dry all the way through.

Step 8:  Let your creations dry overnight.

Tips:  When they are dry, you can glue pieces together and you can paint your creations.  You can also add a coat of clear nail polish to your finished works of art to give them a glossy shine.  If you make beads, you will need to pierce a hole through each bead before it dries.  For small beads you can make a hole using a round toothpick.  Just slide the toothpick through the bead then remove it and let the bead dry with the hole in it.  For larger beads you can use a skewer to make the hole.  For jumbo beads you can use a pencil to make the hole.

How to Make Finger Paint with Gelatin

How to Make Finger Paint with Flour

How to Make Edible Chocolate Clay

How to Tint Salt for Salt Art

How to Make a Water Balloon Yo Yo

How to Make Silly Putty

Comments (0)