Rainy day craft: Cloud dough

Have you ever made cloud dough? It moulds and crumbles like sand, except that it sticks together (like the topping for apple crumble). It is much softer than sand & you can make imprints in it like playdough.

I saw it in this blog last week, so the boys and I had a go at making some. It was super easy and a great way to use up some of the baby oil that hangs around in my bathroom cupboard. Just mix 1 cup baby oil with 8 cups flour. I unsuccessfully tried to add food dye (yes, I know, food dye is water-based and not likely to mix with baby oil & flour - but I thought it was worth a try). So you may notice a few yellow globs in my dough - next time I will just embrace the "cloudiness" of the dough & leave it white!

Mr Sociable loved getting his hands dirty!

Mr Fun loved tipping in the cups of flour, but was not so interested in the mixing.

Cloud dough

Some ideas for playing with cloud dough

Squish it in your hand to make a hard blob, then crumble it

Roll a knobbly ball around to make imprints

Press it into a spoon to make flat, smooth shapes

Make "sandcastles" (I found this worked better with a soft plastic cup that I could squeeze a little to get the "castle" out).

Make animal or dinosaur footprints

Find interesting things to make impressions in the dough

Mr Sociable spent a long time playing with the cloud dough. Mr Fun quickly lost interest - he spent a long time "watering the garden" with the rainwater we collected last week.

Have a brush handy for cleaning up the flour that goes on the floor (Mr Sociable brushed off his arms and pants too!)