Plastic Gelatin

My girls LOVED this stuff. I had never seen this recipe before. I found it in a book, Mudworks, that we checked out from the library. We had everything we needed so I made it because I didn't have to purchase anything.

Plastic jello

1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3 T water.
Food coloring

Mix ingredients and cook over medium heat (or add food coloring in later if you want swirls instead of a solid color). Stir constantly until dissolved.

Remove from heat and pour into container lids. I put mine on plastic dishes. You can use yogurt or coffee lids too. My dishes had tall enough sides I could move them after it was set a little bit. And one mixture fit all on one plate for no spills. Next time, I might but yogurt lids on a cookie sheet to contain spills and make smaller circles. (You can add food coloring at this point to and swirl with a toothpick.)

Let dry until hard. This took ours two days. It looked rubber-er at day one but at day two it was crunchy and ready to come off the plastic plate.

Then we cut them with little kid scissors and hole punched them then threaded yarn through them. They look really pretty hanging by the light. You can also color on them with permanent markers. My two year old is really into cutting yarn this week. ...like there are scraps of yarn EVERYWHERE because she is continually making bracelets and necklaces. So she loved cutting this stuff. It does rip too. She also really liked the hole punch because then she could lace the yarn through it.

Easy to mix up. Cheap ingredients. Fun to play with.

Sculpture by my two year old.