Christmas Playdough Ideas

Today I’m sharing my favorite Christmas playdough activities with you!! I love to make homemade playdough and I will share my all time favorite playdough recipe with you too! Beyond all of this, I love to give playdough as gifts and set up beautiful scenes with it for my kids! It is the perfect holiday play activity to entertain children of all ages.

Over the years I have changed my play dough recipe, here is my original post when I first started making play dough many years ago and here is the recipe I use today!

Playdough ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup salt
4 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 cups warm water
2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil/ coconut oil
Food coloring, optional

Directions:

Heat stove to medium heat
In saucepan, but not on the stove yet, mix flour, salt, cream of tarter
Now put the saucepan over heat and sprinkle in the oil
IMMEDIATELY after, add water and begin to stir vigorously
Once the play dough begins to thicken add food coloring, about 10 drops
Continue to vigorously stir play dough until a soft but well mixed ball of play dough forms (about 3-5 minutes), there should be nothing left in your saucepan, it all forms a ball if the playdough is set right.
Remove the ball of play dough and press it out on wax paper, begin to knead as it is cooling, I let mine cool for about 30 minutes and kneaded occasionally.
It is now ready for use and storing! It stores well in ziplock bags and plastic tupperware.

I add in essential oils to my play doughs to make them smell nice and my kids sometimes mix in dried flowers and leaves to add texture and beauty to the soft blobs! Playdough is a such a great activity for all little kiddos as it helps them to create and design with their hands. We love it!

After the play dough is made try some of these sweet Christmas ideas!

Candy Cane playdough with red petals and coloring! I cut out candy canes and circles to let the kids add the pretty red petal stripes to get the peppermint affect! They also colored these beautiful Christmas trees!

Christmas Tree play dough with sticks and flowers! We mixed in this lovely dried statice, lavender sea foam flower with our green playdough, then the kids added wood pieces they found for tree trunks!

I like to use silicone molds with the kids as well, they are a perfect playdough activity mold for little hands.

Next up, using empty toilet paper rolls to create beautiful flower patterns in white playdough! These come out like snowflakes and make a beautiful setup for kids to explore!

Last year, I set up a story time and cranberry playdough activity for my middle daughter, this was super fun she was able to make little pies all her own style while I read to her.

Playdough makes a beautiful gift when adding dried flower mix ins and then using the dried flowers as a bow! Love how these gifts for all my favorite kiddos came together. You can also add glitter for a little sparkle!

We took one of the original playdough trees and added confetti the next day! Dried flowers and confetti were a perfect tree trimming for the kids.

Here are some other fun Christmas playdough ideas!