DIY playdough: how to make playdough the easy way!

Why buy playdough when you can make your own? We'll show you how to make playdough with our video guide and recipe, using just a few store cupboard supplies

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Zoe Williams

Published: July 15, 2024 at 12:56 pm

Making your own playdough is a piece of cake with our easy DIY playdough recipe. This is a fun and surprisingly soothing craft project for grown ups and children to enjoy together.

Simply raid your kitchen for a few store cupboard essentials and watch our video tutorial to find out how to make playdough.

We'll talk you through the ingredients for playdough and how to turn them into your very own dough, step by step. It should only take you half an hour in total to make your dough.

Once you've learned how to make playdough, check out our round-up of 40 craft ideas for kids for more activities to do at home. If your kids love messy and tactile play, you might also like our easy kinetic sand recipe, or this guide on how to make slime.

DIY playdough video tutorial

Gather your ingredients and equipment (find the full list below) and follow along with our video tutorial to learn how to make playdough.

DIY playdough recipe

This is a really great kids craft activity for a rainy day – little ones will love helping you mix the ingredients and watching the dough magically form in front of their eyes.

You can add a personal touch to your dough by switching up the food colouring that you add, or turn it into intergalactic playdough (you know you want to) by adding glitter.

This recipe will make quite a large batch of playdough – enough to easily entertain 3 or 4 children for days and weeks. But if you'd prefer smaller amounts, try halving the recipe to make smaller batches.

You could even mix it up and make batches in different colours, or with and without glitter, to give the kids lots of different play options. (Though it'll all get squished together eventually!)

Get ready to learn how to make homemade playdough for hours of sensory, creative fun…

You will need:

Water (2 cups (440ml / 13 fluid oz))
Vegetable oil (2 tablespoons)
Flour (2 cups of plain flour (8oz / 200g))
Salt (Half the amount of flour)
Cream of Tartar (1 tablespoon (10g))
Food colouring (Gel food colouring works best)
Saucepan
Spoon

Easy DIY playdough recipe: step by step

Step 1

Mix the flour, salt and cream of tartar together in a bowl.

DIY playdough, How to make play dough step 1

Step 2

In a second bowl, mix a few drops of food colouring with the water (if you want coloured playdough) and add the vegetable oil.

Top tip: turn your playdough into disco dough by adding some glitter at this stage.

DIY playdough, How to make play dough step 3

Step 3

Once it’s all stirred in together, put it in a saucepan and mix together. Add the flour and dry ingredients mix to the pot and mix well. Don’t worry if it’s a bit lumpy at first.

Keep stirring as you heat up the mixture. The lumps should gradually work their way into the dough as it thickens.

DIY playdough, How to make play dough step 5

Step 4

Cook your playdough over a medium heat on the hob, mixing all the time with a wooden spoon, until the dough starts to dry and form a ball.

There are some methods that don’t require cooking but we’ve found this is the best playdough recipe and it only takes a couple of minutes for the dough to cook.

You should see it start to come away from the edges of the saucepan and clump together in the middle. Soon you’ll see it form a dough. If it’s still sticky, heat it for a bit longer.

DIY playdough, How to make play dough

Step 5

Take your finished dough off the heat and cool. This shouldn’t take long – ours just took 5 minutes before it was still warm but cool enough to handle.

If you’re making the dough with small children, make sure a grown up checks the temperature before they handle it.

Once your playdough is ready, lightly dust a surface with flour and tip the dough out to start moulding it.

DIY playdough, How to make play dough step 6

Step 6

Now your playdough is ready to play with!

DIY playdough, How to make play dough step 10

Learn how to make playdough

Now you know how to make playdough! You can roll it, shape it and cut it with cookie cutters or playdough cutters. Kids will have hours of hands-on fun with the dough – and they'll be so proud that they helped make it too!

When they've finally finished playing, store your dough in a food bag or airtight container to stop it drying out.

Discover homemade salt dough with Gathered

Want playdough you can mould, paint and keep? Try our easy salt dough recipe to make decorations, keepsakes and much more!

Launch Editor, Gathered.how

Zoe launched Gathered.how as editor in 2019. A keen crafter, quilter and sewist, she has worked with the UK’s best-selling craft magazines – from Today’s Quilter to Love Patchwork & Quilting, Simply Sewing and The World of Cross Stitching. With over a decade of craft publishing experience under her belt, she loves crafting with her kids and curling up on the sofa with a spot of hand patchwork. Zoe has previously written for radiotimes.com, Simply Knitting and The World of Cross Stitching and was previously Deputy Editor of Papercraft inspirations magazine. She has guest-lectured at Bath Spa University. She’s a keen quilter with 5 projects in progress at any one time and another 12 or so planned. Specialist skills include hand modelling for YouTube craft tutorials and fabric foraging (she has an inbuilt radar for local haberdasheries and community craft gatherings).