With our last crafting class of the year coming up in just a few short days, Miss G and I wanted to prepare some simple gifts to share with the little friends she’s made at Bright Minds over the last few months. We adore play dough and had so much fun with our larger scale play dough snowman building activity that we decided to make miniature versions in easy to pack cases – everything needed to build play dough snowmen in small locking lid containers for some holiday fun on the go {or at home, really}.
First, we gathered up our materials… A double batch of our yummy-smelling vanilla mint play dough, awesome divided locking lid containers, beads, buttons, googly eyes, orange matchsticks, small twigs, and miniature scarves cut from inexpensive felt.
{this post contains affiliate links}
We found our locking divided containers at City Star here in Kuwait, but these Sistema Klip It Split Food Containers on Amazon look similar. I love them because they’re small, easy for little ones to seal and unseal, and perfect for packing in a purse, diaper bag, or carry-on. Plus, they keep the play dough and the ‘building accessories’ {as Miss G calls them} separate, which I like too.
To get started, I added a big ball of vanilla mint play dough to one compartment of each container.
Then Gracen added the accessories to the other. To keep things uniform, we came up with a ‘recipe’ of what should be added to each container (2 googly eyes, 2 matchstick carrot noses, 2 twig arms, 5 beads, 5 buttons, and 1 felt scarf), which turned out to be great counting practice for Miss G.
This is how our kits looked when we were done with them.
Afterwards, Gracen matched up the lids, locked them on, and I used a regular glue stick to adhere some very basic labels I made and printed to fit our containers. And that was it – simple but cute gifts for our friends to enjoy over the holidays, be it at home, on an airplane, and while waiting in restaurants and doctors’ offices. I am so keeping one of these to bring along on our upcoming trip to Germany. In fact, I’m thinking I may create a couple of other little ‘play on-the-go’ kits too! ☺
Of course the one I tucked away for our trip didn’t remain a secret for long…
In fact, Grae’s already had several play dough snowman building sessions with her little kit.
Now let’s just hope the excitement continues until Christmas break rolls around and we board that plane!
Fingers crossed!
Are you following us on Facebook and Instagram yet?
We’d love to have you!
This is a great idea! I bet the kiddos were excited to get these as gifts! Thanks for sharing at the Hands-On Play party!
What a fabulous idea! This could be done with all sorts of different themes too! I bet that vanilla mint playdough smells fantastic! Great combo of scents.
I’m making this for a few of my LO’s friends this Xmas. Thanks for the great idea! :)
You’re very welcome, Tasha! :)
where did you get the containers?? I wanna do this for my daughters preschool class>
I’m not sure where you’re located, Danielle, but we got these ones at City Star, a variety / dollar-type store here in the Middle East. :)
This just popped up on my newsfeed and I LOVE this idea! Thank you!
How long do you think the dough will last before it dries out? We are going to do this for a St. Judes service project and I want to make sure the dough doesn’t dry out before the kids get access to it.
My daughter made one at school, but says she’s supposed to bake it in the oven to dry it out.. thoughts? Not sure if this is true ..
Did you glue on the eyes and buttons?
What did you use for the tobaggan?