Plasticine is a thing that is absolutely necessary for the development of a whole range of skills and abilities of a child, from fine motor skills of the hands to imagination and creativity. Years go by, and technologies replace each other, but there is still a place for plasticine in any children's room.
Another thing is that even today, when buying modern plasticine in a store, we cannot be one hundred percent sure that this particular variety is completely safe for the baby and does not threaten him with allergies or other unpleasant consequences.
The only way to gain confidence is to independently control which ingredients are used in the production process, but for this you need to make clay yourself. However, this is not a fantasy, but a real way out of the situation.
Homemade product characteristics
If you are still in doubt about whether to make children's play dough at home, be sure to pay attention to those the advantages that a home-made product gives in comparison with a purchased one:
- Safety. You are unlikely to wish bad things for your children, so there is no reason for you to add an unverified, questionable ingredient to the mix. That is why clay made with your own hands is the only safe one.
- The ability to create plasticine according to your own taste. The modern market offers a huge variety of varieties and colors of plasticine, but a really good choice is presented only in large cities, and the smaller your locality, the more difficult it is for kids to get what they have long dreamed of. If it is not always possible to buy a mixture for modeling, then at home we make the kind of plasticine we want - it can be baby dough, sculptural plasticine (plastic for modeling), and "chewing gum for hands", and even magnetic, not to mention about the widest palette of possible colors.
The necessary ingredients for all this variety are usually very simple and can be found almost everywhere.
- Cost savings. Although plasticine usually assumes that it can be sculpted from it repeatedly, in fact, its capabilities are limited at least by the fact that when mixing different shades, a mass of rather unattractive color is obtained, which is no longer suitable for real masterpieces. Consequently, the child has to buy new plasticine constantly, and this is a significant cost; if the mixture is also needed not classical, but some more modern, the child's hobby for modeling can be extremely expensive for the family.
The issue of saving is especially acute in regions remote from large cities - where the cost of mass for modeling increases greatly also due to expensive delivery.
The practice of self-production of plasticine shows that even in conditions of store availability, you can get it much cheaper thanks to the knowledge of self-made recipes.
Materials
Each of the many types of homemade plasticine involves the use of components that do not repeat at all in different versions, but are almost always environmentally friendly and free of harmful synthetics.
Actually, some varieties of plasticine are so simple in nature that you don't even need to go to the store to make them at home. These include, first of all, the modeling dough - it is made from ordinary flour, water and salt. The result is not only practical, but also edible, and so that the baby does not use it for other purposes, experts advise adding more salt (which also does not allow water to evaporate, leaving a mass of elastic) or citric acid.
On the other hand, some mums add more to the mix. Saharaso that the finished figures are not only beautiful, but also tasty. For greater durability, some add more and tartar or alum - the finished material is no worse than that of the famous brand Play Doh!
Alternative recipes involve making such a dough using starch or oatmeal, and if you have your own hive with the addition of honey.
At home, it is easy to make polymer plasticine, which solidifies quickly in the open air and allows you to perpetuate the finished figures. In addition to the ingredients described above, there may be added soda, wallpaper glue or even a fine-grained putty.
"Smart" plasticine requires slightly more complex ingredients, but they are also easy to get - an ordinary pharmacy and a stationery store are enough for this. It is prepared from PVA glue and sodium tetraborate, but you should not be afraid - the finished product does not have any initial properties of both materials, but it acquires some new ones - for example, it does not get dirty at all and does not stick to your hands.
There are recipes with more unexpected ingredients like washing powder or hair conditioner, but these ingredients are also found in any home.
By adding magnetic chips, which can be ordered by mail, to the mixture, we obtain smart magnetic plasticine that does not stick to hands and clothes, but is not indifferent to the effects of a magnet.
Kinetic sand is also often referred to as a variety of plasticine, although it is actually made from sand. There are no supernatural ingredients here either - only sand (perfectly clean!), starch and water. The resulting sand plasticine will be somewhat closer to the sand from the beach, but it is also very exciting to sculpt from it - especially since it holds its shape much better than its natural competitor.
Even from foam balls, you can make a kind of plasticine analogy with your own hands, reminiscent of a granular version from a store. Styrofoam balls can be made from any piece of this material used to package various fragile items like machinery, while other relatively complex ingredients require borax and simple PVA glue.
Step by step manufacturing
Each type of plasticine described above has its own recipe for preparation, and sometimes even several. Someone is experimenting with improvised means due to the lack of the indicated ingredients, and it turns out pretty well, and someone slightly changes the described proportions to make the mass thicker, or vice versa - liquid. It is impossible to write absolutely all possible recipes in one place, therefore we will give just a few simple, easily implemented and popular recipes:
- "Lazy" modeling dough. Two glasses of salt and one each of flour and plain cold water. First, the loose ingredients are thoroughly mixed, then water is gradually poured in to achieve maximum mixing. The mixture is kneaded first in a bowl, and then on a flat surface sprinkled with flour until a stable mass is obtained. If the product sticks to your hands, add a little flour, but if it is too dense and thick, you can slightly increase the amount of water.
- Improved dough. A glass of salt is mixed with half a glass of flour, after which a glass of water is slowly added. To the resulting mixture are added 2 teaspoons of tartar (for better resistance to drying), a tablespoon of vegetable oil (for increased softness) and dye. After that, the resulting jelly is cooked over medium heat until it thickens. The formed ball is cooled and thoroughly mixed again.
- Simplified self-hardening mass. A mixture of two cups of baking soda, one cup of cornstarch and one and a half cups of water is boiled until a lump is formed. When the desired effect is achieved, remove the lump from the heat and mix thoroughly.
- Standard hand gum. PVA glue (50-100 milliliters, at your discretion) in a glass container is carefully mixed with a dye (also optional - the more, the brighter the result will be) until a homogeneous mass is obtained. Then sodium tetraborate is added - we do not indicate a specific amount, because the final density of the substance depends on its amount, and the quality of the glue and the amount of dye also affect the proportion.
For this reason, it is advised to add tetraborate gradually - one spoon at a time, paying attention to how the thickening process occurs. The tetraborate must be evenly mixed, so be sure to keep stirring while mixing.
- DIY kinetic sand. Mix 4 cups of clean sand purchased from a pet store (or any other) with 2 cups of starch and 1 cup of water, and then stir well.
- Homemade ball plasticine. Dissolve two tablespoons of borax in half a glass of hot water. Separately mix 60 grams of simple PVA glue with a quarter cup of warm (not hot) water, add dye here. Pour both mixtures into a plastic bag with a fastener, and also add one and a half cups of small foam balls and shake well.
Adding color
Most often, plasticine is made in a set of several colors, or at least one specific color. As a rule, this requires the addition of dyes, because as a result of using most of the described recipes without dye, you will get a simple white plasticine with slight deviations in borderline shades.
Such a color is appropriate either in the set, or if you have obtained a mass for modeling, solidifying in the fresh air to a solid state - then it is much easier not to sculpt a complex figure from multi-colored plasticine, but to make it from plain white, and only then, after hardening, paint with ordinary paints.
If it is decided to make plasticine of other colors, you need to pay more attention to working with dyes. Most recipes involve mixing them into the composition at almost any time, even after the mixture is considered ready - the only question is whether there is such a stage at which a more thorough uniform mixing is ensured.
Crumbled foam ball plasticine is perhaps the only type that requires dyeing strictly during the production process.
Plasticine is stained with food dyes of the desired shade, and if the child is already large enough not to pull the mass into his mouth - and with the help of ordinary gouache. Another thing is that for the youngest children it is better to use natural, self-prepared dyes from what is at hand. The easiest way is to squeeze the juice from fruits or vegetables of the required color with your own hands. The yellow hue is obtained by adding curry or saffron, brown - cocoa or coffee.
What can be blinded?
Different types of plasticine have different purposes, for example, from lizun-handgam (“smart plasticine”), in principle, it is problematic to mold something complex - it is, rather, a hand trainer; on the other hand, some of its varieties, when frozen, spring perfectly, which allows you to make a bouncy or a whole ball. Figures made of dough also do not differ in great detailing of products and the ability to withstand significant weight (although dense views make it possible to make a properly functioning eraser).
Ball plasticine, although it is used to create full-fledged small sculptures, is more relevant for horizontal sculpting - decorating applications or even objects. Kinetic sand is perfectly molded, but, like its natural beach counterpart, it does not guarantee the durability of the resulting products and is mainly used to create castles and other elements of toy architecture.
Another thing is a variety of homemade plasticine that solidifies in the air, because it initially assumes that something really worthwhile will be sculpted from it. For such sculpting, a full-fledged plot is already needed. The most common motive and inspiration for children's plasticine creations are animals - for example, puppies or kittens.
Due to the graceful form, it is somewhat more difficult to sculpt birds, so they can be the next step in the process of improving the creative skills of the baby.
You can also look at plant-based sources of inspiration - starting with fairly simple mushrooms and ending with natural looking trees. Not more difficult in terms of implementation, but a little more intricate in the sense of fantasy, composite combinations of the above elements will look like, allowing you to create not only individual figures, but also real integral landscapes and scenes.
You should not rush to sculpt little people - most likely, at the stage of early childhood, the child will get them extremely primitive, therefore this option is only for those children who like modeling and who have achieved certain success in it.
Important nuances
When self-producing plasticine at home, you should not blindly rely on the proportions indicated in the recipes and strictly follow them. The fact is that even with the same set of ingredients proportions in different sources may be indicated different, because any, even the most standard material still differs from case to case.
The same flour can be more or less sticky, like starch, PVA glue is produced by different factories and also slightly differs, and the amount of dye in general is not indicated exactly in any recipe, although this factor affects the overall thickness of the mixture.
This means that with supposedly the same ingredients and proportions, the thickness of the resulting plasticine can vary significantly, not to mention that this concept is somewhat relative: some mothers want thick and elastic plasticine for the viscosity of the resulting figures, and others - more liquid to simplify sculpting.
It is not surprising that many try to influence the final result by arbitrarily changing the proportions. To make the clay harder and harder, you need to increase the content of binders in it (for example, flour or starch), or vice versa - reduce the amount of water.
In those varieties of plasticine that do not provide for any water at all, for enhanced thickening, the proportion of the astringent ingredient is also increased - in particular, more sodium tetraborate is added to the "hand gum" (provided that the recipe in which it is at all is chosen).
Accordingly, to liquefy a too thick mass, you usually just need to add a little water, and in the case of making clay using flour, you can also increase the content of the softening plasticizer, which is often vegetable oil.
How to restore the drying mass?
The problem of the gradual hardening of homemade plasticine, which over time becomes too strong and inelastic for modeling, is especially relevant for those varieties that are prepared by analogy with the dough.
It is best to protect it from such phenomena even at the cooking stage. To do this, an increased amount of salt, which retains moisture, tartar or alum, is added to the mixture, and vegetable oil is added for softness. Nevertheless, the substance still solidifies over time, loses its elasticity, and products made from it begin to crumble - even the best samples usually last no more than two months, and nothing can be done about it.
It is possible to revive plasticine and make it elastic again only if it has hardened only a little on the outside, but inside it remains soft. To do this, gently knead it with a little water or hand cream, but again this is only a temporary measure.
However, such a recipe is still popular, because instead of a spoiled mass, you can always make a new one.
The “hand gum” is also restored according to a similar scheme, but with one important clarification: it is not diluted with water, for the reason that it was not originally part of the composition. You can use hand cream or any other moisturizer, but overall, this type of mixture is much more durable than its distant cousin, flour.
As for all other varieties, this problem is irrelevant for them. Plasticine, hardening in the fresh air, is specially created in order to quickly harden and maintain the resulting art form, and if it is already frozen, it will not work to soften it. Kinetic sand does not harden - it can only lose a little in stickiness and become more free-flowing; approximately the same can be said about the ball version.
Beautiful craft ideas
Since most children, while working with plasticine, are just learning to sculpt and do not have certain skills, it is important to interest the child by clearly demonstrating that even he is able to create something intelligible. In fact, you can even create simple figures of animals from typical children's balls and sausages, if you think over the future design correctly. Such thinking is beyond the power of a kid, therefore, adults have a responsibility to help.
The next step in learning is to make the figure look more natural. In particular, now it is worth abandoning the unconditionally rounded shapes and trying to give individual parts a more complex configuration. You can use for this both fingers directly and a stack. A separate and rather difficult moment is to teach a child to add small details of a different color to a sculpture.
The photo is far from a masterpiece, but technologically such a figurine is quite complex, and most adults will not be able to dazzle even so.
Actually, the product does not have to be three-dimensional - colored plasticine can be used for application both along the contour and with full "shading". In aesthetic terms, an application from ball plasticine will look better, but in general, ordinary classic dough is also suitable for this.
For a clear illustration of how to make plasticine with your own hands, see the next master class.
