A few ingredients every SAHM/WAHM should have on hand

perhaps even buy in bulk. There are so, so many easy, fun crafts you can do at home with your kiddos using ingredients you probably already have in the house!

Food Coloring... natural or the food grade stuff you find in the baking aisle

Cream of Tartar

Table Salt

All Purpose Flour ("APF")

Mineral Oil -food grade. (you can find it in the stool softener section of your grocery's pharmacy section....i'm not kidding. and please don't ask me why I had to buy the stuff in the first place....)

Vegetable Oil

Wax or Freezer Paper

Acrylic Paints/Puff Paints, glitter (if you a really brave, anyway! hahaha)

What can you make with all this?? The possibilities are endless... but here's a couple we've done ourselves;)

Playdoh!

1C APF (all purpose flour)

1C water, plus any food coloring you may want. the more drops, the more intense the color.

1/2C table salt

2 TBS cream of tartar

1TBS veggie oil

Mix ingredients in a non-stick saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat when dough becomes one large lump and is NOT tacky (sticking to the spoon or sides of the pan).

Dump out onto a clean, dry cookie sheet an allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before kneading with your hands.

If it's too dry (cracking, crumbly) wet your hands a bit and knead the water from your hands into the dough, repeat as necessary until you have the desired consistency.

If it is too tacky/sticky, stick in a microwavable bowl and heat on 30 second intervals, using a wooden spoon to 'knead' as necessary in between heatings until the dough is the desired (non-tacky) consistency. Store in an airtight container.

Salt Dough!

1/2C Table Salt

3/4C APF

2TBS Mineral Oil

2tsp Cream of Tartar

1/2C water

in a large mixing bowl, combine salt, flour and cream of tartar. use fingers to combine, then add oil, water and any food coloring. initially i like to use a wooden spoon to get things mixed and then knead with my hands after the tackiness is gone.

you can now use this dough in a number of ways: halve the dough and form two balls, roll out to about 3/4" thickness and put your kids' hand prints on there

-or-

roll it out like you would roll out cookie dough and use cookie cutters to cut out ornaments. \

If you want to hang them you will need to ensure room somewhere on the ornament to poke a hole (i use a straw) for stringing.

Allow to air dry 3-4 days (i stick mine up on top of my fridge so they are out of the way) and decorate as desired with paints, glitter, jewels, etc.

below are the hand print ornaments we made today; Asher's are in green, Annabelle is in pink and Aristotle is in orange. :)