If you are looking for a last minute Christmas gift idea, or if you simply want to provide your children with a fun sensory activity, this Christmas play dough recipe might just be what you need.
Last week I made 3 batches of my tried and true play dough recipe, with a few tweaks. I ended up with 4 sets of play dough to give as gifts this Christmas.
I put the play dough into little individual plastic containers and attached the labels I made with some transparent tape.
Janna helped me make all of the play dough and was excited that I changed my recipe so that I didn’t have to cook it on the stove this time.
We first mixed the dry ingredients and then added the wet ingredients.
A few minutes of kneading the dough with some flour and it was ready to go.
What makes this play dough special is the addition of some essential oils to make it smell like Christmas.
I used peppermint essential oil for the candy cane dough (red), cinnamon essential oil for the snowball dough (white), and fir needle essential oil for the Christmas tree dough (green). I also added some glitter to each batch to make it even more festive.
If you would like to make Christmas play dough here is my recipe.
- 1 Cup Flour
- ½ Cup Salt
- 2 tsp. Cream of Tartar
- 1 Tbsp. Glitter
- 1 Cup Water
- 1 tsp. Vegetable Oil
- Liquid Food Coloring
- Essential Oils
- Combine flour, salt, cream of tartar, and glitter in a bowl.
- Bring 1 cup of water to a boil in either a pan on the stove or a microwave safe dish.
- To the boiling water add the oil and 10+ drops food coloring.
- Add the liquid mixture to the bowl with the dry ingredients.
- Mix well.
- Place the dough on a floured surface and add 5+ drops of essential oil of your choice.
- Knead until it is soft and smooth adding more flour as necessary to keep it from being sticky.
- Store in an airtight container.
Snowball Play Dough: Use no food coloring, silver glitter, and cinnamon essential oil.
Christmas Tree Play Dough: Use green food coloring, green glitter, and fir needle essential oil.
The labels I made are very simple and can be attached the the containers with transparent tape. I attached the circle label with a little ribbon to the cellophane bags I put the containers of play dough into.
To print the labels click the link below.
Christmas Play Dough Labels
I hope you enjoy this updated play dough recipe. Feel free to customize it with different colors and essential oils to fit any season or mood.
