remoldable clay/ play dough recipe.....?

Question

my kid is crazy about dough.... he passes hours just playing with it... but the bad thing is that every time he plays with it some stays stuck somewhere since he presses it against things(walls, table, bed, plates, u name it!) ... and after a week i find myself buying clay again because it´s stuck all over the house and it´s impossible to put the pieces back together... and it´s quite expensive to be buying so much clay!... please... if anyone knows a recipe let me know...!!!

Answer 1

You can find different clay recipes at...
http://familycrafts.about.com/od/claytyperecipes

Answer 2

Play dough will be less messy. Clay can get into your carpet and the material of your clothes and can really be a mess. Play Dough is man made and it is non toxic (in case she eats some) and it is not as sticky as clay. Play Dough also has lots of presses and shape cutters and play sets that go with it and clay would just stick to everything and ruin it. If you keep your Dough in the cans, with the lids on, it will stay fresh for a long time. If it starts getting dry, you can also add a few drops of water and knead it into the dough to refresh it. I recommend Play Dough.

Answer 3

The main problem seems to be that he's using various types of "air-dry" clay which won't stay soft very long once they're exposed to the air.
In that case, he could use "modeling clay" (the heavy, colored stuff that comes in long bars, etc.) which never air dries. BUT when that type of clay is stuck to *porous* surfaces, it can leave an oily spot so I don't know if you'd really want that. (I believe Silly Putty would do that too, but maybe not).

I can't think of another type of clay offhand that isn't air-dry or which wouldn't leave an oily spot if left very long on porous surfaces. There might be though.

The only other thing to do would be to encourage him to "model" other kinds of materials, or to model "clays" that you could replace easily and cheaply.

In the first category might be things like pipe cleaners along with various other things to attach or to wrap around, etc. (you don't say how old he is and that could matter a lot).

The second possibility would be many of the homemade doughs or clays... there are actually a lot of them!
Simple paper mash, or paper shreds with white glue added to it (a more clay-like form of papier mache), could be a possibility.
You could make the plain paper mash just with torn up junk mail mixed with water in a blender, then strained... or for a cheap version of the paper shreds you could just buy a big bag of Celluclay at a craft or hobby store or probably chop newspaper or other paper in a food processor yourself, then add the water and/or glue.

Other kinds of "clays" can also be made from grains or other materials along with some kind of adhesive usually.
Grains like wheat flour will make "salt-dough clay," which is probably the most common homemade type used by kids, or you can make various types of clay based on cornstarch, etc. (You could even let him model with mashed potatoes, etc. if you didn't think it would start a dangerous precedent!)

Of course, any type of bread dough or pretzel dough --without added adhesives--could function as a clay too and even be eaten.
Just plain soft "white bread" without the crusts can turn into a clay if it's compressed and mooshed around, and there's actually quite a good clay called "bread clay" that requires adding some white glue that will actually create quite detailed sculpts when it air dries.

Even sand can be mixed with some kind of adhesive to create a type of clay (but that's more work than you might want to do).

Once he's old enough not to wander off with the clay and actually begin to want to "make stuff" he can keep, you might introduce him to "polymer" clays (which bake in a home oven so they're permanent, like Premo of FimoSoft, e.g.), or you could reintroduce him to air-dry clays then he could paint those afterward if he wanted, etc. Here's a page on the many ways that kids can use polymer clays... many of which would be transferrable to air dry clays:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/kids_beginners.htm

And here are a bunch of recipes for homemade air-dry clays.:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLC,GGLC:1969-53,GGLC:en&q=kids+clay+recipes


HTH, and good luck!

Diane B.

P.S. Just thought of something else... you might be able to encourage him to "stick his clay" onto something more manageable than just all over the house. For example, if he has a large something-or-other sitting right by the clay, he could have fun pushing his clay bits onto that. ... perhaps something you make like a large papier mache item (perhaps weighted), or even some kind of play "diorama" thing he already has (can't think of the right name for things like that, but things like large plastic forts, houses, mountains, pirate ships, car washes, etc.). This could work best if *he* helped to make the large papier mache thing, or if *he* chose which item to use as his base for sticking things on.

Perhaps he would also have fun using the *dried* bits he's already put here and there, onto something else like a mound or a shape of fresh air-dry clay, or onto a layer of that clay that's covering some kind of a stiff base (like a box or something).

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