Chocolate Play Dough Recipe for Some Valentine's Day Fun!

Happy Valentine's Day! Happy Birthday to my niece Kate as well! She is 19 years old today!

My little Valentine and I had a great time making Chocolate Play Dough! I used my favorite Chocolate Play Dough recipe and oh my goodness, it came out smelling just like chocolate fudge! Here is the recipe from the Imagination Tree.

2 Cups plain flour
1 Cup salt
1/2 Cup cocoa powder
2 tbsps. vegetable oil
2 tbsps. cream of tartar
2 Cups of boiling water*
4 Drops of glycerine (optional extra for increased shine and stretch)**

* I prefer the stovetop methods of actually cooking the dough. I feel that it results in better, more cohesive dough so I just added the ingredients in a sauce pan, added the water, and cooked it over low heat stirring with a rubber spatula until it came together. Then I kneaded it. ** I also did not add the glycerine, I did not find that I needed it.

It was a delicious, no calorie treat that both my daughter and my kids at school enjoyed very much!

 

 

The Delicious Looking Finish!

 

 

Kayleigh also woke up to a delicious little breakfast set up Valentine's Day morning!

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

 

 

 

Testing Out My Calm Down Jars, Sensory Doughs, and Cloud Doughs!

So let me just say that I LOVE my new toys! I was going to bring in the new additions today but we have a snow day so..... Kayleigh and her friend are testing them out instead. Of course I made extra for Kayleigh to have at home, but it never hurts to get it "Kid Pre-Approved". Kayleigh used her pink calm down bottle last night as a timer. When the glitter settled, it was time to turn out the lights and go to sleep. Worked like a charm!

I made up 4 different calm down jars using "Fiji" brand water bottles. It got me to drink a lot more water. Then I made cloud dough with flour and some with cornstarch- I have to say that the flour mixture was much more pleasing to my tactile senses and ears. I also made up some cloud play doh with sliver and iredescent glitter. So pretty! I will make more and add Peppermint to it.  I tried to make glitter slime, and I think that you definitely need Elmer's brand glue and the Stay Flo Liquid Starch brands to make it work. Otherwise it is really watery.

Some additional helpful tips:

1. Make sure that you put the glitter glue in the empty bottle first and then add the water. Failure to do so will result in clumpy glue and lots of bubbles when you shake it to mix it up.
2. I used my Keurig to get instant hot water- no microwave or stove top for me! It worked fabulously.
3. Baby oil can be substituted for the vegetable oil- it will keep the dough (both play doh and cloud/moon dough) from spoiling and going rancid. I used lavender scented for the lavender dough and actually, all of the dough- it came out smelling great! 

Here are my photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the way the snow dough came out. It was so sparkly and Kayleigh used it to make "Sugar Cookies".  So cute and a great Snow Day activity!

 

Enjoy!

Sensory Play!!!!

 

(photo courtesy of My Crazy Blessed Life)

 

For those of you who may not know, I am a school-based Occupational Therapist and Massage Therapist. I LOVE sensory play! There are so many great ideas out there! I have been incorporating lots off scented homemade play-doh into treatment sessions and the kids cannot get enough of it. Kayleigh LOVES her home-made play-doh too. We did gingerbread play-doh for Christmas time and her and my students loved to make snowmen, snakes, and letters with the dough. They said it smelled great and it adds another level to learning! Engaging as many senses as possible is fabulous for activating the many centers of the brain when learning something new.

Here are some play-doh recipes and sensory bins! I have also included links to moon dough, slime, and mind/stress relief jars that are great for calming kids down. The website Growing a Jeweled Rose has amazing ideas for sensory bins, play doh and other crafts and educational ideas. Fun at Home with the Kids is another website full of great ideas!

Aromatherapy Play Doh
Gingerbread Play Doh
Lavender Play Doh
Peppermint Play Doh
Lemon Play Doh
White Sparkly Snow Play Doh
Strawberry Play Doh
Chocolate Play Doh

Snow Slime
Golden Slime

Moon Dough
Lavender Moon Dough
Snow Dough
Cloud Dough
Moldable Sand Dough


Mind Jar Recipes

Here is a great Mind Jar Printable that you can attach to the jar. What a great idea! Cannot wait to make mine!

Recipe from Here We Are Together
Calming Down Jar from Family Sponge
Fairy Light Jar
Hush Bottles from In Lieu of Preschool 
Kids Crafts Sensory Bottles- tons of ideas here!
Untrained Housewife
My Crazy Blessed Life- this one is really pearlescent and shimmery! It is by far my favorite recipe for a Calming Jar out there! So pretty!

Disney!

I am sharing one of my creations that I plan to give to Kayleigh when we go on another trip to Disney. It is an autograph book that includes pages for all four parks in Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Universal Studios.

This past summer we went down to Florida for a week and went mainly to Sea World, Aquatica, and spent a day at Discovery Cove and swam with the dolphins. That was amazing and I totally recommend it. Kayleigh and I just love the ocean and dolphins. They even had a baby dolphin named Kayleigh! She came out to say hello, but did not stay long. Our dolphin, Marina, was very sweet and just precious. I created an autograph book out of a 5x7 sketch book and decorated it using stickers and ribbon. It came out gorgeous and was a conversation piece for the characters we met when we went to the Magic Kingdom for a day. It actually got Kayleigh more time with the characters! She was in heaven. 

This autograph book used 10x10 chipboards that actually had the rings and the tabs in the kit. I found pretty shimmery paper and themed scrapbook paper and stickers to compliment the theme. Each park got its own tab and I used a master character list to try to get the main characters I imagined we would see in each park. Of course, this trip is not even planned yet, but it is definitely in our future so it will be used at some point. It was slightly expensive given the total cost of everything, but the project was fun to make and that is what I focused on. The idea came from a scrapbook pin on Pinterest. You can check out the website here. Tones of great ideas!  I think it came out pretty good too, don't you?

We are staying at the Disney's Beach Club so I wanted the front to have a "beachy" theme along with the inside cover! Kind of matches the Beaches N Cream Soda Shop doesn't it? 

This was the original cover that I had put on but changed it....

This is the inside of the books with tabs for each park.  This will be a combo smash book/ autograph book/ scrapbook with photos and momentos of the big trip! So excited!

For more ideas, check out my Pinterest inspiration board here! Check out my next post about my daughter's journal and travel autograph books! So cute! There will also be a post about the "exploding" (no worries nothing dangerous here- well maybe dangerously cute!) box as a way to surprise her before we go!!