Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Play Dough Beads - Tutorial

Time To Play!
BEADS. BEADS. EVERYWHERE!



Several months ago, I got some inexpensive PlayDough like at the Dollar Tree for a dollar. I thought it was a deal. It turned out that the dough was getting hard after been open for few weeks. It got to the point that it was not fun to play with it. It was hard to shape for our pretend play... I was annoyed with the fact I had to to throw it away when I though about using the PlayDough to make some beads. I had planned to buy some round wooden beads for sometimes. I could not find what I was looking for or it was too pricy for the longevity of the interest in beads. This package of Play Dough came at the right time. Let's make some BEADS!

Beads. Beads. Everywhere.



Play Dough Beads Project


Time: few days
Cost: $1
Difficulty: Super easy and you can do it with you little one
Total beads: around 100



  • List of What You Need
- Different colors of Play dough (red, yellow, green and blue)
- Small cookie cutters
- A rolling pan
- Plastic knife
- A straw (the one from the small drinks like milk or juice work well because they are stronger than the long ones)



  • Round Beads
Take the play dough of your choice and make some balls (around ½ inch in diameter).



Make a hole by pressing the straw through the balls and place it in a box to dry.




  • Flat Beads
Take some play dough and roll it with a rolling pan (around ¼ inch thick).



Cut different shapes using your small cookie cutters.



Make a hole by pressing through the flat surface and place it in a box to dry.

  


Option: Instead of using small cookie cutters, you could use bigger ones to make few
 pendants. 




  • Cylinder Beads
Roll some dough of your choice and shape it as a snake (around ½ inch in diameter).



Take a knife and carefully and slowly slice ½ inch high cylinder





Make a hole by pressing through the cylinder and place it in a box to dry.



Option: You can use a pair of scissor to cut the cylinder instead of the knife




Let the beads dry in a container such as a cardboard box for several days and turn them at least once a day to allow to dry allover. In a few days (depending on the quality of your Play Dough) your beads are ready! If you would like a shiny finish, you could paint the beads with some varnish (plain and/or with sparkles).





To store your beads, you can use the containers that they came from. To facilitate "Clean up time" put a colored sticker on the front of each box. Your beads are all nice and sorted for the next time you want to play with them.






On a side note. If you want to make some nice Play Dough to play with and stay nice and soft for a long time try: Jello Play Dough. You can find several recipes online. The texture is better than the PlayDough brand and it is super easy to make. It is the one with make and use at home.



Happy Crafting!
Laetitia :-)





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