Today we whipped up a little batch of sculpting dough. This is somewhere between playdough and clay. It is a thick dough that dries pretty quickly. It is good for making ornaments, shapes, beads, etc. Ready? Let’s get started.

First, head to your pantry and your craft closet. Here is what you need: food coloring (Evan’s favorite), glue, water, flour and cornstarch. 

Put a few drops of food coloring in a bowl. I told Evan to do four, we ended up with about eight. Life is all about compromise, right? Then, pour in 1/4 cup glue.

Pour in 1/4 cup water and stir it up. 

Next stir in 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup cornstarch. It will get pretty thick, so use some elbow grease. 

Once it gets too thick to stir, pour it onto the counter and knead it for five minutes or so. You’ll want to get all of the flour and cornstarch mixed in. Now is the fun part. 

Start shaping the dough! You can roll it out, cut it into shapes or sculpt it. The dough does dry quickly—a little too quickly for my guy’s tastes. The outer layer starts to get a little crusty, which wouldn’t be bad, but Evan was having a lot of fun just playing. I finally convinced him we should cut out some shapes. We did Miss Madelyn’s initials, since she was being so patient while we whipped up our little concoction. 

Here are a few of our masterpieces: 

Evan liked this dough, but it wasn’t nearly as popular as last week’s slime. I think this would be a lot of fun for little girls making beads for necklaces. The beads dried completely in about two hours. I expect everything else will dry overnight. I will make this again during the holidays so we can create some custom ornaments for our tree. 

The Recipe:

1/4 cup water
1/4 cup glue
4-8 drops of food coloring
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch

Mix water, glue and food coloring in a bowl. Stir in flour and cornstarch. Mix in bowl until thick, then turn it onto the counter and knead for five minutes. Shape into shapes and then let dry.