I’ve also really wanted to experiment with adding colouring to it, and I can officially say, it doesn’t work! * We used nearly half a bottle of purple and then one third of a bottle of pink colouring, and it mixes in just a tiny amount but won’t distribute throughout the whole. I’m guessing this is because of the oil since food colouring is water based and therefore won’t combine easily. Any other guesses? Interesting for experimentation! We DID add plenty of purple and red glitter and that dispersed beautifully, making the whole tub shimmer and shine as they played.
* edited to add:
We have since coloured it very successfully using powdered paints! See our pink cloud dough cup cakes here for how-to!
Recipe:
- 7 cups any type of flour (we used economy plain flour)
- 1 cup vegetable oil or baby oil (we used vegetable this time)
- as much glitter as you wish!
We tipped it into a large, shallow tub (we got some “boot boxes” in the supermarket this week that are a great size for sensory tubs!) Then we found some large and small shells of different shapes and colours, pebbles and driftwood.
Because of the nature of the sand/ dough, it is possible to make beautiful imprints from the shells.
And you can make gorgeous sand castles which can be decorated with shells, just like really being at the beach! C has been obsessively making little sandcastles ever since the tub was put together, and has been making up some wonderful stories about buried treasure and pirates!
Cakie: 3 years 4 months
Pop: 21 months
Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum says
Ohhh that looks so much fun. I was going to try colouring with some of the paste rather than liquid food colouring as I have some from birthday cake making I used that to colour our playdough and it worked much better than the liquid colour giving a stronger colour to our dough as well.
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
OOo worth a try! Let me know if it works. I’ve never tried those pastes but it would be great to get some for our serious play-dough addiction!
mummylish says
Gorgeous idea 🙂 I know my little one is going to love love love this! Thank you
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
You’re welcome!
Faye says
Lovely! I used pink food colouring (silver spoon) to make a batch and it took the colour really well?? I did use baby oil though so maybe that’s the difference. Don’t give up- it does work! X
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
RIght, that’s IT! I’m trying it again! Any excuse really, I love the stuff! Glad to know it’s possible! thanks
Melissa @ The Chocolate Muffin Tree says
Excellent ideas! Dough Queen once again! We definitely need to try cloud dough!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
haha Melissa, I love that you call me that! And yes, try it…you’ll LOVE how easy it is!
SarahF says
Anna, when you type ‘imagination tree’ into google one of the suggestions is ‘imagination tree playdough’ LOL! You really are Mrs playdough!
Melissa @ The Chocolate Muffin Tree says
Funny Sarah!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
LOVE that piece of trivia!!
castleforkeeps says
Yay. Granny baby sitting tomorrow and thin this will be a great activity to leave her to do with the twins. DO you know for how long or how well this “sand” keeps?
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
What a FAB Granny you have! Wowsers! It seems to last for ages- our last batch is still fine and we made that at least 4-6 weeks ago. Keep it in a tupperware box. I don’t think the ingredients can really go off so it may last quite some time! Have fun!
Jamie @ hands on : as we grow says
Love the glitter addition! I still gotta try Cloud Dough!!!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
You REALLY do Jamie! Your boys will love having their tractors in it!
SarahF says
This is a lovely idea. Max is all about cars and diggers in it atm but i think this will definitely go down well with Katy!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
You could have some diggers at the beach I’m SURE! haha
Charlotte: says
We have had the same batch, uncovered since we made it for the play challenge in November and it i still great!
I would suggest sifting powdered food colouring with your flour, before adding the oil. The powdered colour is expensive, but the colours are intense so you don’t use much.
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
Haha good point Charlotte, in that case I’ve had mine even longer as you got your recipe from me! hehe. I’m not very good at keeping track of time.
I’ve never seen powdered colouring- interesting! What is it for generally?
I’m planning on tracking down some powder paint soon too if I can and I reckon anything that constistency should work well. Thanks for the ideas!
cookwithkids says
Oh I’m so going to try this one! My son is a bit tactile defensive so going to the beach is a bit of a worry for him if it gets on his hands. This would be perfect for him to try in his home environment which is a little less threatening. Thanks for sharing!
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
I hope he likes it then!
quinncreative says
Is it OK if I just pretend it’s for kids and play with it myself? It looks like a soothing toy for the end of the day.
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
That’s exactly what I do with ALL our play set ups! haha. Enjoy it!
Louanne says
Thanks so much! What a neat idea.
Anna @ The Imagination Tree says
thanks Louanne!
Clare says
Thank you so much for this idea, both of my girls are having a fantastic time playing with this. Lots of talking about what they are doing and making.
Leanne says
Going to try this soon with my 18 month old – just worried he’ll throw it everywhere! I think I enjoy playing with these things more than him at the moment!!
Anonymous says
You can add cinnamon to get the sand colour. Thanks so so so so much, cause I was looking for an alternative to my sons playing in the dirt, for health reason, now I have no worry. Whoever came up with this is a genius. I want to try oatmeal and rice to get varying textures. Thanks again.
Anonymous says
You can get food coloring that is used in candy making that might work. Since chocolate has a high fat content and does not react well to water, I believe that the special food dye is oil-based…
Hand In Hand Daycare says
I was lying in bed after an eventful, fun filled day wondering how on earth I could get the sand dough colored. The only thing I could come up with was if you could add powdered tempra paint to the flour before adding the baby oil because you can’t color the baby oil? I didn’t try it yet because I don’t have any on hand. Now I’m wondering if anyone had tried this?
Anonymous says
I just made this for the first time for my nearly 4 yr old, just flour & sunflower oil… He loved it! He used cups and little bowls to make sandcastles and cocktail sticks to make flags! I’m going to invest in some powdered paint now to colour it… Unless anyone knows if the colour paste works as I have all of those? Also some glitter 🙂
Jamie says
My grandkids just left. We made koolaid playdough last night and had a wonderful time… Now I find this! I don’t think I can wait until they are back. Is it okay to make this for myself? Um… I could give it to them next time I see them, right? Maybe I’ll make a quarter amount – just to try to be sure it will work for them. What do you think? It’s my responsibility to be sure they would like it.
I love this site. I’ll be sending a link to my kids for their kids!
Becca Drew says
I love this recipe! We used it in my 30 month – 4 year old class last week! It was a HUGE hit! We gave you a shout out on our blog. Feel free to check out our pictures! Thanks so much for this inspiring blog!
http://thebubhub.blogspot.com/2012/08/bubble-step-in-clouds.html
Danielle Lauch says
You can also try Kool-Aid powder if powdered paints or food coloring is hard to find.
Lizzylea says
I did this today and coloured one batch green and one batch red and one batch pink with regular liquid food colouring It took a lot of mixing with the back of a metal spoon and some kneading through but worked great. All my 4 loved it aged 2,4,6,7.
Anonymous says
how about the alcohol based coloring for candy? i think that would work well with the oil.