I’ll be the first to admit that we’ve had our fair share of flops over here, and this week we had another one of them.
It was messy. It was sticky. It was everywhere, and it did not fulfill my dream in any way, shape, or form.
It was homemade playdough. Pumpkin. And it was disgusting. But the kids loved it.
I have always–always!–wanted to make scented playdough, and I’m really not sure why. I’ve seen dozens of websites with pictures of happy kids and moms (or dads, but not many…) rockin’ the homemade playdough thing, that I thought it would be no problem at all for us to make a little pumpkin playdough to celebrate the season.
This past summer, I bookmarked several sites that featured pumpkin playdough-fun which I came back to in the fall, all excited about and ready to try. Well, this week, we tried it, and it just didn’t work for us. Boo-hoo.
So this week’s New For Us Friday is the pumpkin playdough F-L-O-P.
- Pumpkin Playdough Flop: I’m not even going to point out the recipe I tried, since I’m sure it was something that I did–some ‘tweak’ of the recipe’–that caused it to flop. (What I will do is share other pumpkin–or scented–playdough posts in case you’d like to give it a go yourself.)
Surely we will try again sometime this winter, after a bit more research on my part, to control the scented-playdough monster. . .
The kids and I had been talking about making scented playdough for quite some time, so when I asked Cora and Owen if they were up for making it, they were.
We all headed to the kitchen and followed the directions I had created, printed out, and placed in a plastic sleeve. At least I thought we followed them.
Owen and Cora measured and added.
They stirred and they folded.
I heated and stirred.
And we waited while it cooled.
And we waited and waited and waited and waited.
Cora pats the warm playdough, hoping it will cool off quickly.
After rest time, Owen and Cora watched their show and then ran to the counter, hoping that the playdough would have cooled so they could play with it. It was still warm and sticky, so we walked up to get Maddy and determined that it had to be cool by the time we returned.
It had cooled, all right, but it was sticky and nasty.
It stuck everywhere–on sleeves, on shirts, on the counter, and on the floor. I was hesitant to let the kids at it, once they got their hands on the mess, Maddy, Owen, and Cora could have cared less.
They squished. They squeezed. They flattened and scraped. And although sticky playdough’s not my thing, I watched and waited and wondered who’d be the first to freak out and start screaming that their hands were itchy and sticky. It was Owen. And soon after, it was Cora.
And Maddy played for longer than I would have thought, enjoying the squish and stick and yuck.
She helped me scrape the pumpkin junk off of the counter as I vowed never to make playdough again for the rest of my life. Or at least for another few weeks.
Like I said, I’m not sure what went wrong, and it wasn’t a total bust of an afternoon because the kids had a blast. And the New For Us Friday part of it was that we’d never tried it before and we did and so what if it didn’t work perfectly–it’s a great lesson in picking back up and trying again another time.
Although I think that kids can also appreciate the ‘magic’ of making playdough, and there really are some awesome 
recipes out there, I haven’t found one yet that I love, love LOVE.
Here are some homemade recipes that–when I build up the strength and courage–I’ll try again. Many are from super-talented experts in the field:
- Pink and Green Mama: One of my favorite bloggy pals, MaryLea, rocks pumpkin playdough and apple playdough and Kool-Aid playdough and everything else she touches.
- No Time for Flashcards: My pal Allie rocks at everything preschool and crafty–of course her pumpkin playdough is perfect! (Here are her other playdough recipes.)
- Chasing Cheerios: Melissa just makes it look easy as pumpkin pie!
- PreKinders: WOW! Tons of recipes here, even a sawdust playdough recipe!
- Kid Activities: 40 recipes for playdough. Birdseed playdough. Edible peanut butter playdough. Sparkly playdough.
Many thanks to the friends above for their playdough posts, and if you have a fool-proof recipe you totally love, link back here or share it, please, please, puhlease!!
