homemade play dough

while the kids were eating lunch, i decided to make them some home-made play dough and use up the old food coloring i had in the spice rack.  it pretty much is all the fake colors we have in the house.  since they won't be eating this (i tasted it, YUCK!) i'm not concerned with the use of them. 

so here is the recipe.  i got the cheapest stuff i could find for it (generic everything possible):
4 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
1/2 cup cream of tartar
4 Tbs oil (i used canola because it was what i had)
4 cups hot water ( i heated it in the microwave before i poured it on)

you put this on med-low heat and stir - it is sticky and nasty and your arm will hurt from stirring.  i used a large metal pot and a wooden spoon.  i started with a plastic spoon but it was so hard to stir that the spoon kept bending.  you let it "cook" until it isn't sticky anymore - i just left it there and stirred every couple of minutes from the bottom of the pan, maybe after 10 to 15 minutes it seemed like it was thicker.  i turned off the heat and just let it sit.  it was way too hard to stir.

i got out 7 little tupperware cups and put a handful in each one so that it would close.  then i got them out one by one and kneaded it with a lot of food coloring, mixing to make the proper colors. the white, by the way, is just plain (no color).  it took a lot of red (like maybe 15 drops) to make the red, orange was about 8 yellow and 4 red, yellow was about 10 yellow drops, green was about 15 green drops, blue was about 20 blue and 2 green drops, and the purple was maybe 8 red and 12 blue drops. you may have to adjust it because my blue was doing more squirting than dropping and i didn't really count when i was making it.  i just know that orange and purple was not an even split for mixing the colors.  red is a very strong color so you have to use less.  and for the blue, i wanted it to be a little brighter thus the 2 green drops.

i kneaded it with my hands until it was smooth - which took quite a bit of work!  i think they turned out pretty though!

so then while i was outside, i decided that maybe i made this playdough for me to take pictures of and not so much for my kids.  they still haven't played with them... it was nap time - maybe tomorrow they can play with it. 

i ended up playing with the settings on my camera while shooting the dough- mainly with the program settings, aperture, and the manual focus (not all at the same time).  i came up with this series.  i thought it was kinda neat (the focus moves from the white to the purple...) - and yes i know they are crooked. i wasn't paying attention to that, i was more paying attention to the settings.  these photos are untouched.

and then this one has them all pretty much in focus (but very crooked - i was using the manual focus).

oh my god. i love this camera.  have i mentioned that lately???