Halloween Playdough

I think this may be the pinnacle of our playdough making! We made a batch of clove scented playdough using our usual recipe from The Imagination Tree, and then divided it into two balls. We coloured one orange (using red and yellow food colouring) and the other black and added some silver glitter as well. As usual I had to use a lot of food colouring. I have since read that some people use a squirt of a washable ready-made paint and that gives more vibrant colours so I think I will give that a try next time.

The smell of cloves was amazing (we just sprinkled ground cloves into the playdough mixture till it smelled right), very autumnal and warming. Perfect for playing with on crisp autumn days!

The resultant playdough, still warm and fresh from the bowl, enticed Poppet to play with it as soon as I put it out. It was really pliable and aromatic and I think she really liked having more than one colour to work with. 

I paired the playdough with a selection of our autumn treasures - acorns, sycamore seeds, pinecones, and leaves - and also put out a little bowl of whole cloves and some playdough utensils.

She used the lumps of playdough to stand up the twigs in to make little trees, so I showed her how to use balls of playdough to make the tree bigger and taller, adding in more branches. She really likes using the 'knife' and happily cut away at the playdough for ages (although insisted on using the knife upside down).

She experimented with making imprints in the playdough with the acorns and cones and seeing the shapes that they left behind. She was calling the acorn's cupules 'hats' and liked standing the acorns up in the playdough and then making sure they had a hat on. 

I thought to give her our recently decorated peg people, so we added them to our play and she had great fun fitting them all with their hats.

Grandad came in from working outside and assisted by showing Poppet that she could use little lumps of playdough to secure the hats to the heads.

Hatted people having a chinwag

The people had to have beds, of course, so Poppet tasked Grandad, Daddy and me with each making a bed for them. We all produced a bed, some more inventive, realistic and well just better than others but I won't name any names. All I will say is Poppet picked mine as the best and it had detachable covers and a pillow.

It was too hard to resist playing with the playdough and I also created a little garden and then a pumpkin which Poppet loved and insisted I made another. All afternoon she treasured those pumpkins along with the bed that I had made her.

They were all placed very carefully in her play kitchen cupboard and she was very insistent that I didn't put them away "Don't tidy this one mum. I love it mum. Don't tidy it up. I love it. Just look. Just leave it here. Don't tidy that up. I love it." She is at a stage just now where she declares her love for quite a lot of things!

Poppet's beloved objects. Please note the bed looked better when I first made it!

I am sorry to say that Grandad and Daddy's interpretations of a bed were placed in her other kitchen cupboard and I was given permission to tidy these up if I so wished.

This has been by far Poppet's favourite playdough and she has asked for it out to play more than any other I have made. I'm looking forward to making some Christmassy flavours in a few weeks!

Poppet: 2 yrs 9 mos

Little: 1yr