Come on own up....who's got my copy of I'm Bored?

Why is it always on the school holidays that the heavens decide to open and not stop?  My kids are on a one week half term holiday...one week....and for the whole of this one week it has not stopped raining.

Whilst going slowly mad to the sounds of Spongebob I suddenly remembered play dough, play dough is GOOD!  Now all I had to do was locate the book I'm Bored!  This has an excellent recipe for play dough which I used to make a lot for my eldest kids when they were younger.  I have searched and searched my bookshelves and have a very vague recollection of lending it to a friend.

Scuppered I decided to scour the Internet for the recipe, wowzers, there are so many different ways to make play dough but I really wanted to make the one from the book just because I know for definite it worked.  Anyway, I came across this website, adelynSTONE and not only did she have the recipe or as close to it as I could find, she had a great spin on it......GLITTER....I love glitter and shiny stuff as I'm sure you've all noticed.  And if that wasn't enough she has lots of other great tutorials and blogging advice.  I felt like I stumbled upon the jackpot.

And without further ado, I present to you......Play Dough

You will need the following
1 cup (250ml) flour
1 cup(250ml) water
1/4 cup(60ml) salt (make sure you read these in the correct order because I nearly added 1 cup of salt....which makes me wonder if the I'm Bored version had more salt in, hmmm, maybe.)
2 tbsp veg oil
2 tsp cream of tartar (This will be found in the baking aisle and NOT the condiments aisle...another near mistake I made years ago!)
Food Colouring

Optional
Glitter
A few drops of vanilla essence to make it smell nicer

Basically what you do is chuck ALL the ingredients in a saucepan, mix them up into a gloopy lumpy disgusting mess and then heat gently over a medium heat stirring all the time. Eventually it will start to get harder to stir, you will know you've finished when you end up with a ball of colour stuck on your spoon and arm ache with a Popeye muscle popping out of your stirring arm.

I should warn you at this point not to just start kneading it straight away as you WILL burn you hands...it's hot.

Let it cool down for a bit and give it a quick squidge.  Put it on the table with lots of cutters and rolling pins and release your children.

Once all the fun has been had you are going to have to sweep up lots of tiny bits from the floor, well at least in my house that's how it ends....my kids are super messy.  Now all I need is a helpful tutorial on how to make my kids into super tidy children.

How have you been entertaining your kids on this wet and windy holiday? And do you have a special take on play dough like the glitter?  I'd love to give them a go.

Enjoying making play dough
Chantal x