Rainbow Unicorn Playdough

My kids love color, glitter and playdough. We combined all three of these and made rainbow unicorn playdough! This easy salt dough recipe involves creating a range of playdough colors and mixing them all together. Of course, a generous sprinkling of glitter is the finishing touch.

To make homemade playdough you need water, vegetable oil, salt, cream of tarter, and flour.

Playdough Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tbsp. cream of tartar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• Green gel food coloring
• Food coloring & glitter (optional)

How To Make Playdough

Mix together the water, vegetable oil, salt and cream of tartar in a saucepan over low heat until warm. It’s helpful to fully dissolve the salt into the water before adding the flour. Slowly mix in the flour and stir until the mixture reaches a doughy consistency.  Remove from the heat and let it cool.

We divided up our homemade salt playdough into balls and kneaded food coloring into each piece. It’s helpful to use parchment paper as your work surface so you don’t stain the countertop. You can create a bunch of colors by kneading food coloring into small pieces of the cooled white playdough!

Add Glitter & Essential Oils

Sprinkle your homemade unicorn playdough with glitter and let your kids have fun mixing the colors. I reminded my kids that mixing all of the colors will eventually create brown. However, they had a lot of fun making colorful playdough creations! We were even able to salvage some of the individual playdough colors to save for later. If your kids mix all the playdough together into brown, you can always make more!

We also added some lavender essential oil to our playdough. Essential oils make the dough smell not so salty and turns regular playdough into an aromatherapy activity!

My kids always enjoy making playdough and it’s an easy project I can whip up to fill an afternoon. Playdough also teaches kids how to play independently and provides opportunities to practice sharing. My girls love any creative activity that involves glitter and color!

Colorful glittery unicorn playdough is easy to make and fun to play with. Your kids will love making shimmery creations with this fun sensory activity. Which colors will you create?

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Katie Wallace

Hi, I’m Katie! I live with my husband and 4 kids in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. I love Jesus, coffee, creative projects, photography, and traveling. I’ve previously worked as a web designer, journalist, and barista. I hope you enjoy our creative projects and family adventures!