Blogger / 14 November, 2022 / Nanny Anita

Naturally Dyed Play Dough

We love to make play dough; I love to play with it while it is still warm. Over the years we’ve made lots of different themed ones mainly using powdered paint or food colouring to dye them. This time I have been experimenting with naturally dyed play dough.

There was a video that a friend had posted on Facebook about the different things you can use as a dye. I was slightly dubious about it and thought it would be fun to give some of them a go.

Make sure you follow my play dough board on Pinterest for more ideas. Don’t forget to save the pin for later.

To make your own naturally dyed play dough you will need:

• Red grapes (for pink)
• Turmeric powder (for yellow)
• Blueberries (for purple)
• Rosemary (for brownish green)

In separate saucepans boil down the rosemary, red grapes, and blueberries until the water has become saturated with colour. For the turmeric you can just add that to a glass of hot water. The video said that if you add bicarbonate of soda it will turn the yellow to a deep brownish red. It certainly does do that, but when we used it to dye the play dough it went yellow.

To make the play dough you will need:

• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of the coloured water
• ¼ cup of salt
• 2 tbsp of cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp of oil

To make the naturally dyed play dough make sure that you substitute the 1 cup of normal water for the water from the boiled down fruit.

Add all the ingredients to a saucepan and mix on a low heat. Keep stirring until it starts to come away from the side of the pan in one clump. Set it out onto a work surface, then kneed it until it becomes a dough. Please be careful as it will be extremely hot when you take it out.

I was really surprised at how well they turned out. The only one that really didn’t give off a strong colour was the rosemary.

Other things you could try is the left-over water from boiling green veg, like broccoli, or avocado pits.

If you enjoyed this naturally dyed playdough be sure to check out my silky soft 2 ingredient play dough, my red velvet cake play dough, and my kool aid play dough.

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