My Pinterest boards are chock full of ideas, most of which I’ll likely never get around to trying. But today I managed to pull off a successful Pinterest project: homemade play dough.

I used this recipe and found it to be really easy, both in execution and clean up. It took me about an hour from start to finish making four colors–red, orange, light red and green.

The dough looks strangely gelatinous (is that word?) when you first mix the flour in with the liquid ingredients.

But then you turn it out onto a floured surface to start kneading.

It didn’t take long for it to start looking like play dough.

I was having so much fun making the play dough I caught myself wishing that Max and Elly would wake up early from their nap so we could start playing. I quickly talked myself out of that nonsense and kept working. Just as I was ready to knead the fourth batch, Max and Elly showed up in the kitchen; they had, in fact, woken up early from their nap.

My intention had been to use the play dough for afternoon play time, but since they were there and the dough was ready we got started right away.

It didn’t take long for Max and Elly to get the hang of working the dough.

Elly used the rolling pin and kept saying “napika chapati” meaning “I’m cooking chapati.” (Chapati, Indian flat bread, is one of Elly and Max’s favorite foods.)

To keep with her cooking theme, we picked off a bunch of little pieces of the green dough so Elly could cook mchicha (greens). I’m so glad my sister Connie saved my toy cookware set in her attic so we could bring it back to Tanzania with us after we visited the U.S. in July.

Since we were pretend cooking, we also did some pretend eating. But judging from Elly’s concerned look, she wasn’t totally sure Max understood the concept of pretend. (She was right in being concerned; there was more than one moment when I had to remind Max that “siyo chakula!” (it’s not food!).

Since this recipe included cream of tartar as a stabilizer, the dough should theoretically last quite a while as long as I keep it stored properly. It was so much fun to make I’m ready to add some more colors to our play dough supply. I’m adding more food coloring colors to my shopping list.