Fun play dough stamps

The other day my husband came home with one of those mega play dough sets for the tot. I love making my own play dough (I think store-bought has a funny smell…) but before I could even get out a word, our daughter let out such a scream of delight I kept my comments to myself. Along with a big assortment of colors, the set came with tons of shape cutters, tools, rollers and squashers.

She loved it for about a day.

This afternoon she was playing around but I could tell she needed a bit of motivation to keep that play dough cool in her little world. So I asked her if she wanted to paint and play with play dough.

Well, OF COURSE!

The tot’s favorite color of the moment is red, so we rolled out a golf-ball sized amount of hot-red play dough and squeezed a bit of red paint (and yellow and orange) on a folded sheet of paper towel. After we spent a few moments pressing and indenting the ball of play dough with a few items, I encouraged her to gently press the molded play dough into the paint and then print on a white paper. She continued pressing and printing until her paper was covered with interesting shapes and designs.

While she was exploring, I couldn’t help seeing what would happen with a bit more patience. I pressed a bit of play dough over a sprig of rosemary and had a great time creating a little pattern. Then I tried a flower puffy sticker, which also created a fun graphic stamp.

Tons of possibilities!

This is a fun and simple project for wee tots as well as older kids that understand the printmaking process. You can press the play dough on just about anything to create really awesome and fun stamps. And this is a great way to use old bits and pieces of play dough, or that glob of dough that’s been created from mixing all the colors…

Have fun!