The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

Golden Shimmer Dough!

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A recipe for wonderfully sparkly, golden, shimmering DOUGH!
I’ve been wanting to try cloud dough for a long time and have seen it around the web a lot recently. So we had a go at making some and decided to colour it yellow and make it look golden like shimmering stars!
* However, after reading comments on this post I realised this wasn’t like most cloud dough recipes! It’s more like a normal play dough, though more stretchy and less long-lasting. It was a fabulous play experience nonetheless, but we have since tried a new recipe and are very happy with that!

 Recipe for golden dough:

  • 3 cups plain flour
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • a few large squeezes of yellow food colouring
  • a small quirt of gold glitter paint (ours was acrylic) Optional 
  • some body shimmer dust

 Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, stir together and knead until smooth and stretchy. It takes a while to become soft and pliable, firstly resembling a crumbly dough then becoming lovely and stretchy! This is a GREAT way to get your little one to strengthen their hand muscles as they knead.

 I picked up some of this “body shimmer dust” ages ago in Primark for 50p because I knew it would be good for something some day (did I mention I’m a terrible craft hoarder?!) Once the dough was made the girls used this dust to dip their fingers into and “paint” all over. It shimmered beautifully!
I found some simple gold star sequins and they loved pushing them into the dough to make “stars in the sky”and to add to the general sparkly fabulousness!

 I think this would be perfect way to celebrate Bonfire Night on 5th November, or to celebrate any festival or occasion related to fireworks and sparklers! It would also be lovely as part of a Christmas theme or to go along with singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” at nursery or preschool!

The dough can be stored like play dough in an air tight container at room temperature. I love it, but still prefer our non-cook play dough recipe as my favourite ever malleable material!

Learning Links:

  • creativity: use a material to represent another object or character, combine materials, sing nursery rhymes when playing!
  • physical: develop fine motor skills through rolling, stretching, pinching, squeezing, moulding and sculpting with a malleable material/ strengthen hand and arm muscles through kneading
  • knowledge and understanding: follow recipes, talk about changes in materials
Cakie: 37 months
Pop: 19 months

Comments

  6. Erm. I am evidently a blogosphere rank amateur. What *is* cloud dough? Fluffy play dough? Am confuzzled…
    Oh well. Perhaps I should just make some tomorrow with the girls to find out?

  7. Haha Rachel and Kierna! Well, I was expecting something more like yours Kierna, but I notice the recipe I used is different. I used veg oil so maybe that makes it more of a real dough? i.e. one you could bake with. After it had been worked for a while it became stretchy, pliable and play-dough like. I thought it would be fluffy and somewhat messier 😉
    I think I will try again with your recipe!

  8. I love the body shimmer dust on the play dough. I call it “fairy dust” – perfect for Halloween. Beautiful play dough art you have mastered. I will definitely try your cloud dough recipe. I love my Play Dough recipes but they don’t look so pliable. Fabulous Fun!

  9. Ok, I’m back in the room. We’ve just made some . Used a different recipe (one with 8 cups flour, and one cup baby oil).
    It’s fabulous! Very different from yours: more like making pastry, or wet sand. Pre-schooler has been playing with it happily now for nearly an hour! (“I am makin’ Gruffalo crumble… oh, it’s snowing!….. it needs a bit of stirring….”)
    Ours is full of green glitter, but the next time I see some cheap shimmery body powder I’m going to be all over it! 🙂