5/29/2008

Homemade play dough



Play dough is a wonderful thing. But most of what T got for her birthday last year has already shriveled in and dried out. We had to throw most of it away. I must say I wasn't too sad - whats in that stuff anyway?

So we made our own. We found different recipes in books and on the internet, an landed on one based on baking soda and corn starch. We've made different kinds of dough before, mostly salt dough (or trolldeig as it is called in Norwegian. Troll = troll, deig = dough). This one felt much more like "real" play dough than the salt dough does. But baking soda is hard (if not impossible) to find in big quantities here - so we just had enough to make a little batch. And we didn't add food coloring since we wanted to paint and decorate it.

I think it is great for smaller children, as it is very soft and pliable and easy to work with.


I don't know how long it keeps in the fridge, but if you put it in an airtight container/bag, I guess it will last for at least a few days. It got a little dry but we just added water (we used ours within a couple of days). The creations were left to dry on a plate for two days and then painted. The final product:


Beads! Pretty pretty. Just got to love them.

If you wonder about the recipe; 1 part baking soda, 1 part corn starch, 1 part water (and food coloring if you like). Mix in a saucepan on low heat - stir constantly - until it gets lumpy and looks like mashed potatoes. Take it off the heat and pour out on the table/sheet/board and wait until it cools. Knead until it looks like play dough.

5/21/2008

Who am I and what am I doing here?

Hello there! I'm a woman in my late twenties, Norwegian, mama of two little girls (aged two months and 5 years). I'm married and we live in a remote location in the south(ish) east of Norway. We've been here for four years now and we love it. We have two dog, several rabbits (flemish giants and french lop) and lots of other animals grazing outside our front door. Horses, cows, sheep, goats, geese, chickens, turkeys... So as you probably can imagine - we live "in the country". We don't own a farm, but our neighbors are mainly small scale farmers, and we're hoping to turn our lot into a high yield permaculture garden - some day...

This blog will be about "the ordinary stuff" - moments and glimpses of our everyday lives. To give you an idea of what that includes and what I probably will write about - here are some of the things that are important to us:

Permaculture. Simple living. Thinking globally, acting locally. Paganism. "Traditional" Scandinavian shamanism. Asatru. Attachment/connection parenting. Photography and film making. Stop motion animation. Creative, poetic and thought provoking documentaries. Crafting and creating. Knitting. Crafting with kids. Writing. Thriftshops and fleamarkets. Anything and everything vintage. Food. Cooking. Vegetarianism. Preserving food. Herbs. Country living. Small scale farming. Self sufficiency. Gardening in general. The vegetable garden. Creating stuff out of willow. Animals. Natural building. Educational philosophies and (natural) learning. Waldorf education. And still more...

We'll be so happy if you leave us a comment!