Playdough Candy Canes!

I knew that the boys would be having some little friends over this afternoon so I left a message from Santa in our beautiful new advent calender this morning letting them know that we would be making Playdough Candy Canes! I got the idea here at Just for Fun but used the *perfect* playdough recipe from My Montessori Journey (I've never made such great playdough, you've got to check it out - plus, she adds glitter and scents and it works!). 

Anyway, I made 2 batches - 1 white with a lot of Spearmint essential oil (I had planned to buy some peppermint essence from the baking department but my store didn't have any & then I found this spearmint oil in the bathroom - which I thought was fine seeing that it's not going to be eaten) in it & silver glitter.

The red has a *lot* of red food colouring in it - like almost a full bottle! - and red glitter. The boys helped with adding the glitter and the colour and oil & the stirring. 

When it was made and while the boys were sleeping/resting, just for fun, I made separate portions & bagged them up with a name tag each & put them under the tree for the children to find. It was a sweet surprise :)

Roll out a red snake and a white snake and then roll them together to merge the colours. Give it all a bit of a twist and another quick roll and...

...Voila! 

I put them in the oven on low heat but our oven is playing up & kept turning itself off & I've never baked playdough before so I don't think it's really worked... might pop them back in later & hopefully by tomorrow morning we'll have some new ornaments for the tree!