Make Some Homemade Play Dough!
What is more fun that play dough? You get to build pretty much anything you want with play dough and if you don’t feel like building something you can just squish it, smoosh it and roll it into balls and hot dog shapes for stress relief. Everybody knows that you can go down to down to your local retail store or amazon.com
As part of our build simple toys initiative justbuildstuff.com is going to share her recipe with our community. And make a batch ourselves for play and testing purposes. We start with a materials shopping list, note that this recipe requires a lot of salt. I did not notice until I started adding ingredients that I did not have enough salt and I had to empty every salt shaker I had in order to complete the recipe.
- Flour- 3 cups
- Cream of tartar- 1TB.
- Salt- 1 1/2 cups
- Vegetable Oil- 2TB.
- Water- 3 cups
- Food coloring- As Needed
To begin I dumped all of the ingredients into a saucepan. As you can see in the photos below I should have selected a larger saucepan, but the one I used worked.
After adding all of the ingredients, I set the stove top to medium heat and began stirring the concoction. I added yellow and red food coloring to make orange play dough. I don’t know if I stirred more than I needed to, but I really got a work out stirring this stuff. After about five minutes or so of stirring, the dough mixture
began to get very thick and pull to the center as shown in the photo below. At this point I removed the saucepan from the burner for it to cool.
When the dough was cool enough to touch, I squished around some clumps of it and laid it out on wax paper for additional cooling.
After the dough was completely cool, I squished and kneaded it again and bagged it into freezer bags.
Then after waiting about an hour my family and I played with some freshly made play dough. The only real notable difference with the
home made play dough is that you will get a salty residue on your hands while playing, but the home made play dough seems to
last longer than the commercial version before it dries out!
Toys- Build Something Fun!
Toys, toys, toys! Before the holiday season, justbuildstuff.com will be posting a series of simple to build toy ideas that anyone can build for the children in their lives. Oftentimes the most meaningful gifts are ones that the giver puts some thought into and creates especially for the recipient. These projects will be simple and fun things like play dough and toy trucks. Best of all you get to have the enjoyment of building the toy and every time you see it you can proudly say, “I built that! “
If you have any simple toy ideas you would like to see posted on the site, send us an email at build07@justbuildstuff.com or leave a comment on this post. Keep building and keep checking out www.justbuildstuff.com for more building ideas.
The PVC Flag Pole Project- Part Four Get the Flag On!
October 7, 2007 by Kurtis
Filed under Made From PVC
If you missed parts one, two or three of this www.justbuildstuff.com project make sure to check them out.
Now that the structure of the pole is together it is time to add the flag. There are many ways to attach the flag to the flag pole. I have seen metal clips, cable ties, key rings and shower curtain rings. The method that I used on this particular flag pole was shower curtain rings. I drilled holes through the pipe that supports the flag and inserted the shower curtain ring through it. I drilled one hole 1.5 inches from the tip of the pipe and the other thirty six inches further down from the first hole. If you use this method make sure that the eyelet holes on your flag line up with the holes you drill on the pipe.
Now it’s time to stand the flag up. I used a 2 foot long piece of concrete rebar from my local home center as a stake in the ground, as shown in the picture below. Any type of metal stake at least 1/2 inch in diameter and 2 foot long should also work as a stake for the flag pole. Now the easiest part is just dropping the flag pole over the top of the stake. and watch the flag blow in the wind while the pole spins. If you notice the pole starting to dig itself into the ground you can slide a large washer over the stake, this will give the pole something to sit on top of so it does not dig into the ground.
And the flag pole is finished. As promised I hope that you found it fun, simple and inexpensive. Thanks for coming to www.justbuildstuff.com.
The PVC Flag Pole Project- Part Three Putting it Together
October 6, 2007 by Kurtis
Filed under Made From PVC
If you missed part one or part two make sure you go back and look it over. It contains the information you will need to find materials and to cut the pvc pipe.
Now that the pvc pipe is cut, it is time to get the fittings shown in the picture below and assemble the pipes into a flag pole.
Take all of the fittings and pipe and assemble them in the orientation shown in the picture below.
In order to maximize the strength of the flag pole the two joints shown in the photo below should be glued with pvc cement. I did not glue any of the other joints because I wanted to be able to disassemble my flag pole for easier storage and transportation.
Tomorrow we will add the final installment to the project where we attach the flag and let the flag be displayed for all to see.
Click here to go to part four of the project.
The PVC Flag Pole Project- Part Two Making the Cuts
October 6, 2007 by Kurtis
Filed under Made From PVC
First things first to build this flag pole you need a materials list. Most of the items below can be found at your local home center or hardware store.
- 1 – 10 foot long piece of 3/4″ pvc pipe
- 1 – 45 degree 3/4″ pvc fitting
- 1 – 3/4″ pvc T fitting
- 2 – 3/4″ pvc end caps
- 1 – 2 foot long piece of concrete rebar (or any metal stake that fits inside your pvc pipe)
Now that we have the material we can get to work. Take the ten foot long piece of pvc pipe and cut it into two four foot long piece and two two foot long pieces. The cuts in pvc can be made using a simple hack saw or you can use a powered miter saw with the appropriate blade as I did (Always remember that when you use power tools to be safe and wear safety goggles). A picture of the cut pieces is shown below. Tomorrow we will put the flag pole together.
