I found a recipe for “cloud dough” on Pinterest a few weeks ago and had been wanting to make it for David. Since we’ve been hanging out at home all weekend potty training, I thought it would be the perfect novel activity to help pass the time.

This afternoon while David was napping I whipped up a batch of the cloud dough. Basically, you just mix together 8 cups of flour with 1 cup of baby oil (I actually ended up using about 1 1/4 cup baby oil to get the consistency I was looking for, which was about 3/4 of the bottle). I just used the cheapest flour I could find in bulk and a generic brand of baby oil, for a grand total of $2.00 for all “ingredients”. I mixed my cloud dough with my hands in this old Lego Duplos bin that I’d been hanging on to for such a use as this (it’s nice and sturdy and has a good lid that snaps into place so I can use it to store my cloud dough after playing).

When David woke up from his nap I told him that I’d made him a special surprise–and he loved it! We laid out a quilt on the floor and put some large baking sheets on top for our play surface. Then we used plastic cups to make towers (kind of like sand castles) and our hands to form balls. The cloud dough feels really neat–soft and moldable. It also smells really great because of the baby oil. It does not, however, taste very good (just ask David). David played for a good 45 minutes before he was ready to move on to a new activity–pretty good for a 2 year old who usually gives things about 2 minutes before his attention wears out!

This worked alright as an indoor activity, but we did get pretty “dusty” and everyone ended up needing to change their clothes after play time. Since it’s just made of flour and baby oil, though, I’m sure it will clean up pretty easily. It would be great to make this stuff in the summer and just go wild outside in the yard. You could probably even have “cloud dough” fights instead of snow ball fights!