Home Made Play Dough Fun! (With EASY Recipe)

I realize I am not inventing the wheel here people, and I also realize that there are about give or take 1.5 Million other handmade play dough recipes out there in blog land.  This is my version, and pictures of the fun my boys had with it!  This dough is incredibly soft and smooth dough, not very greasy either!

Ingredients:

1/2 C. Salt

2 1/4 C. Flour

4 Tsp. Vegetable Oil

2 C. Warm Water

Step 1:

Place all ingredients in a large sauce pan, and blend with an electric mixer until well combined.

Step 2:

Place on the stove top on medium heat for approximately 2-4 minutes blending with the electric mixer while it is on the stove (BE CAREFUL)

Step 3:

Allow to cool for a few minutes, then divide evenly amongst 4 (or how ever many colors you want ot make) bowls

 

Step 4:

 

Add a little food coloring to each mound of dough

I used Betty Crocker Classic Gel Food Colors. Love the gel consistency!

 

Knead the color into the dough, using your fingers. I recommend using a glove for this part if you don't want to dye four skin temporarily. 

Hayden loved watching me get everything mixed. 

All ready to go!

Sam's first choice, a sad snowman...SICK OF WINTER HERE!

 

Eben tried his hand too!

See, dyed hands are lovely ;)

Fun for all!

Can't have play dough fun without farting noises... TOOT TOOT!

Getting the hang of it.

Hayden wanted the box more than the tools. He chased it around the table. 

After the fun has been had, put each color separately in tupperwares or plastic bags and save for the next time! 

Enjoy!

Adirondack Patterns:The Growth of A Handmade Business

This week we reached 2 HUGE milestones as business owners.  We celebrated our Third Year in Business, and passed our 2000 sales mark! So exciting. 

It is amazing how far we have come, and how much our business has grown.  

Here are the sales for our first month in business March-April 2010 a whopping 12!

Slowly but surely we sold 198 orders for that year, and added a few more patterns to the shop. In total we had approximately 30 patterns in the shop by our first year anniversary.

Exciting right?

2011 was a landmark year! I had a new baby, and therefore we had a new muse! We inundated our fledgling shop with new patterns, inspired by that babe.

 Julia's Waldorf doll patterns became more coveted and perfected, and we started advertising a bit with various blogs who emulated what we liked, or thought we would be a good fit with them. 

Here are some of the patterns born that year!

Waldorf Doll Patterns

 Baby Knit Booties Pattern

 Cloth Diaper Cover Pattern

 Crochet Cocoon Pattern

 Newborn Crochet Dress Pattern

The advertising worked, and the views of our shop for 2011-2012 year were over 57,000! Sales totaled 652 for that year alone~and business was as they say...booming!

More exciting, right?

Well, little did we know, 2012-2013 would be the biggest year yet!

Our traffic increased to over 90,000 hits, and our sales were over 800 orders!

Advertising continued to be our major source of traffic for 2012-2013 with a majority of the traffic coming from buttons we had on lovely blogs like Rhythm of The Home, Small Things, French Press Knits, and Smashed Peas and Carrots. Julia's Waldorf Doll Patterns seemed to be the "it" pattern for simple Waldorf Dolls, and word of mouth spread in the Waldorf World! Ravelry turned out to be a huge traffic source for our crochet patterns as well. We were selling internationally, with one of our biggest countries of sales being Australia!

We started a Facebook Page to help obtain more fans, and spread the word of mouth in the social media forum.  

Now we have over 600 fans!!!

The feedback we received over the years was crucial to the success of our shop, we love to hear what people have to say about our patterns! 

After much research, and soul searching we decided to put handmade swaddle and baby dolls in the shop this year! 

Here are a few of the newest additions!

Cane

Isobel

Ethan

A custom order

We are very excited for what this year has to bring! More creativity, a little more love, and many more little babies to craft, and of course meeting more new customers!

Thanks for liking us, and for reading this. Your support is so encouraging!

As a thank you, please use our 20% discount coupon code on any orders from our shop through the weekend! 

Enter code THREE20 at checkout.

Sincerly, Laura and Julia

Instagram Purge End of 2012 - March 2013

 Hayden enjoys looking out of his window every morning

 Snuggles with his baby and his "ba"

 2012 First Year Playing Soccer! So Handsome!

 My Boys...up since 4 AM

 Julia and I at the Relay For Life 2012

 Hayden at the Relay for Life Cheering on our fellow walkers

 Snuggles with Auntie

 Hayden hangs like this in his sleep any chance he gets

 In the Vintage highchair that mom and dad got when the boys were babies

 Boy pile on at the park

 Hot after soccer. He is so cute!

 OMG...those bunnies!

 Bear waiting patiently for some droppings

 Poppy and Hayden on the see saw

 Playing hide and seek in an old box

 Nakedish frog baby

 Sporting my twinnie inspired scarf wrapping

 Removed the rugs from our dining room.  Ahhhhh...clean

 3D Glasses make me laugh!

 More hanging out

 Cleaned Sam's Room and got him a coat tree

 My three sleeping cherubs

 Fall Festival at the school 2012

 Waiting patiently at the pediatricians

 Reading is good!

 Sam's Apple Head Scarecrow. SMILE!

 Making Poppy proud

 My bubbas

 Caramel Corn for Halloween snacks

 Pretzels and cream cheese. YUUMMMYY!

 My bubble boy

 A fine looking Auntie outfit ;)

 Made a doll Hadley for a Hurricane Sandy family

 Huggies

 Ohhhhh how I love them

 Forts = Happy boys

 Sam and I made a model for his class.  OUT OF A CLOTHES PIN!

 My wonderful thankful boy wrote this lovely piece

 She loves him to pieces

 Donated Blood for the first time.  Not bad, SAVE SOME LIVES PEOPLE!

 Cut some fringe on a day off to hide my post pregnancy hair loss at the front of my face

 He loves him~safe and warm

 Yup. hopped right in the tub, diaper, shirt and all. This boys LOVES tubbies!

 Made some babies bodies for the shop www.Adirondackpatterns.Etsy.com

 More reading, big as cuffy!

 Christmas concert, he is prech!

 Brotherly snuggles. NOT posed

 My coffee cozy design

 A generous, love filled, wonderful Christmas it was!

 In their Christmas jammies 2012

 Hayden and I watching White Christmas together. Sam came in towards the end and loved it! I cried.  My favorite Holiday movie.

 Cut off my hair, just able to put it in a pony.

 Making a rubber band gun from a kit Auntie got him for Christmas

 A Lincoln Log Village from Oma and Poppy

 Bribery to eat new veggies.

 Making and labeling CPSIA labels for our baby goods

 He loves her. Did I already mention that?

 Wake up Sam! Can't you feel me sitting on your back?

 Still needs a sling on occasion.

 That...Face!

 Picking buttons for my hats is a fun fun fun time!

 Mmmmmmmm

 Little Piggies

 Bought a treadmill. Love it

 My newly made keychain fob

 Ehhhhhh, not a big eater. To say the least

 Likes his new suction bowl and booster seat though

 3rd Grade. Seriously? Heartthrob!

 Power outage. Lets embroider. They didn't hate it ;)

 Getting so big

 Cleaned Sam's DISGUSTING carpet. No food allowed ever again

 Love babies posture

 Yup, how he rolls

 Fell asleep on the couch watching bob pants

 My honey

 Julia and I used to do the same thing

 Found this under Hayden's bed, in a shoe. I had lost it for almost a year

 Love them to pieces

 He is a daredevil of climbing

 The Euge

 My Sam and I getting ready to ski Lookout Below for the first time! Just him and I

 Trying a new parting.  Not hating it

Hairy loves sleeping on Hayden

 Featured in Rhythm of the Home Magazine!

 A visit at work~love them!

 Hayden's went to his friends first birthday party

My fit boy!