Chocolate play dough!

Smells delicious. Feels lovely. Tastes disgusting. So I advise you have a snack handy because this will give you a chocolate craving, but it won't satisfy it.



Chocolate play dough recipe.

1 cup plain flour
3 tbs cocoa
1 tbs cream of tartar
1/2 cup salt
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 cup water

1. Tip all the ingredients into a pot. A smart individual would choose a non stick one. I didn't.

2. Cook, stirring constantly, over a medium heat until thick and coming away from the sides of the pot.

3. Tip onto the bench or table then knead using your adult asbestos hands. It will be hot, so keep little hands away for a few minutes. Once it is smooth and a bit cooler it is ready for play.



We fossicked in the craft cupboard and found some sparkly jewels and an old chocolate box. What you use is up to you and depends on what you have laying about. Beware of choking hazards with tiny kids. We've had fun in the past using one of those shiny gold chocolate box inserts, glitter and coloured foil. You're limited only by your imagination.



Now mould, shape and decorate. Go on, make Willy Wonka proud.



Tada! Good enough to eat!

This play dough will last for many weeks if it's kept in an airtight container or snap lock bag in the fridge, so there's plenty of playing to be done yet! Here are a few extra activities you might like to try...

-Get out the cookie cutters and a rolling pin and do some pretend baking. All the better if you have a play stove (or cardboard box with knobs drawn on and a door cut out) to cook them in. Once they're out of the pretend oven, I'd highly recommend a pretend cup of tea to have with them.

-Make chocolate cupcakes in cupcake papers, sprinkled with glitter and with match stick candles. Singing happy birthday is obligatory. After all, there is always a stuffed toy in the house celebrating a birthday on any given day.

-Make a fresh batch of chocolates, then set up a chocolate shop. You'll need a counter for display and a cash register of some kind. Again, a bit of cardboard ingenuity might be necessary. Now buy and sell from each other using buttons for money and little bags to take your goodies home in.

-Open up that third drawer in the kitchen containing all the gadgets and locate your ice cream scoop, then set up an ice cream cart. You could use bowls, or fashion some cones out of cardboard (a cereal box would work a treat). Take turns to scoop and decorate with some glitter, beads or whatnot and exchange buttons in place of money. Can I just say, the picture in my head also include some jaunty little paper hats and aprons?

A DIY childhood...

...used to be the norm, didn't it?
As kids, we'd career down dirt roads in billy carts banged together lovingly by Dad in the shed. Wheels from old wheely bins would ping off in all directions midway down the dirt road rendering us grazed and band aided.
We had cubby houses made from rusty bits of roofing iron and fence palings. Lurking inside would be juicy, velvety spiders with hairier legs than your Dad. Always dispensed of bravely by a gumboot clad foot before serious play could begin.
The sandpit was invariably made of a combination of treated pine and truck tyres and was routinely cleared of sticks, leaves and neighborhood cat deposits before empires could be built within.
It was a precarious play environment, but somehow super awesome.
There was no safety net on the trampoline.
The slip and slide, wasn't a boxed novelty from the toy shop. It consisted of three blue tarpaulins laid end to end down the steepest bit of backyard grass (not lawn, NEVER lawn) with the hose at the top, a bit of Morning Fresh and, by the end of the day, a grassy, sloppy swamp at the bottom. And those tarps? They took the skin off on the brisk slip to the bottom.
Water play in searing heat did not consist of a squirting thing with a face, and wiggly arms plonked on the lawn. It would be jumping on a slippery trampoline underneath the Rain Wave sprinkler, which was doing double duty hydrating the tomatoes in the garden at the same time. And do you remember that other sprinkler? Chik, chik, chik, digadigadigadiga......
There were bare feet all Summer. On concrete, on hot sand and on prickly, bluestone driveways.
Public playgrounds had rides that terrified your Nanna (and if utilized following birthday cake would unfailingly induce vomiting). There were ALWAYS two slides. A small, safe one and another, taller than your house and without sides. Oh, the danger, oh the excitement.
So here, at my place we're taking the cotton wool off the kids. It inhibits risk taking and subsequent learning and it's pretty hot and itchy, too. Their Dad has scoured the town for pallets and built them a top notch cubby (above). It hasn't cost a cent and every time I look at it I blow a metaphorical raspberry at the places selling those overpriced, ordinary, flat packed ones.



We've salvaged several chunks of tree from friends for some pirate ship/space shuttle/prehistoric adventures and some sand (by the trailer, not the bag) will be introduced shortly...and plenty of crafty, outdoorsy things to add later on.
Amongst peers raised in safe, sterile environments, my two don't know how lucky they are.



There's some good stuff happening in buntyandsars land, too. I've got some new products, plenty of new ideas, a new studio and, at long last, a new printer!! The shape and face of my beloved brand is evolving and bit by bit, in the gaps left around being a Mum I'm getting stuff done. This here humble little blog is slowly undergoing a transformation, too. Stay tuned for more crafty bits, cookery bits and kid bits. Fun, fun for everyone.