Tutorial: How to make lavender play dough

I have found this to be the perfect afternoon activity to do with my daughter. She helped me make our first batch and I have since given it away as birthday gifts. Here is what you will need:

1 cup sea salt

2 cups flour

2 cups warm water

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 Tbsp cream of tartar

Food Colouring

Lavender Essential Oil

Step 1: Put all ingredients into a large pot over low heat and stir.

Step 2: Keep stirring! While the mixture is starting to firm up, add in 10 drops of lavender essential oil. I sometimes use 8 drops of lavender 2 of rosemary. The first batch I ever made I just used 6 drops. I can smell the lavender but it wasn't quite enough for my taste. It is easy to add more so start off small and keep adding to suit your taste. I like using lavender because of its antibacterial properties.

Step 4: Once the dough starts to get too firm to mix and really starts pulling away from the sides of the pot, let it cool a few minutes until it can be handled. Then take it out of the pot and kneed it until soft and smooth. If after a bit of kneading it is sticky, add a touch more flour or place back in to the pot and warm up again. If it is too stiff, wet your hands with water and knead the dough again.

Step 5: Form the dough into balls. I make three balls for the primary colours. Create an indent in the ball and add food colouring there. Kneed again until food colouring is equally distributed. You can then colour combine. Blue and red = purple, Yellow and blue = green and so forth.

Step 6: Create! Play! Mould and Sculpt! Or... let cool to room temperature and then store in an air tight container in the fridge when not in use. I have had my batch for a couple of months now and it is still going strong. Once it starts getting funky, toss it and make more. Creations can be baked. You will have to experiment with your own oven for temperature and duration. Enjoy.

Written by Rachel from OAST