Playdough

4c. flour
1c. salt
2tbsp. alum
(mix these together)
1/3c. oil
4c. water
food coloring
(bring to a boil and add to dry ingredients)

Edible Peanut Butter Playdough

(For children over 12mos. because of the honey)
2c. peanut butter
1c. honey
3c. powdered milk
Mix ingredients with a spoon or your hands, until smooth.  Add more honey if mixture is too dry.  Serve on small waxed paper squares.

Flubber

In my art for children class we used the clear glue w/ glitter in it--beautiful!

2c. white glue
1 1/2c. cold water
20 mule team borax
In 3 separate cups: mix one cup of hot water and one teaspoon of twenty-mule team borax. Mix glue and water together. Put one cup of borax mixture into the glue & water, stir until "glob" forms.  Pull out glob onto a plate. Add the next cup of borax mixture to the glue/water mixture and stir.  Pull glob out.  Repeat with the last cup, if there is any glue mixture left. Store in airtight container.

Note: If you're not careful, this can wind up almost as expensive as the ones in the stores. The key, I think, is buying the bins as cheap as possible (i.e. from 99 cent stores) and you should try to get good wood but look for a good price on it. Also, I used bin sizes that are not as easy to find as some others--but it's easy to adjust the sizing below for different size bins. The good news is you can built & paint this exactly the way you want it, which makes it better than any store-bought toy rack.

You will need: dowels (about $3.50 each), 6 quart bins (about $2.00 each), 15 quart bins (about $ 3 - 5.00 each), good plywood (maybe $25.00), paint.

Buy ¾ inch plywood to cut into two end pieces approximately four feet high by 15 inches wide, and six yard-long ¾ inch diameter dowels. These will support the plastic bins for toy storage.

Round off top edges of end pieces using a jigsaw. You can use an inverted bowl or flowerpot to draw the semi-circle for a cutting guide.

Cut a shelf for the top bookshelf from the ¾ plywood. It should be three feet long by 14 or 15 inches wide.

Begin assembly by fastening the shelf approximately ten inches below tops of uprights with at least six screws through the upright sides (drill guide holes for screws in uprights and in shelf).

Decide what angle of tilt you want in the rows of bins by doing a preliminary fitting of the dowels and one of the bins for each row. The less tilt, the wider the uprights will have to be.

Drill holes to seat the dowels through the upright sides. Also drill narrow holes for nail guides in the dowels themselves. I recommend using nails because trying to use screws is difficult as the dowels will turn while you're trying to seat the screws.

Nail the dowels in place.

Use at least two 6 to 8 inch metal braces affixed diagonally from the top shelf to the uprights on both sides to strengthen the structure and make sure it sits at 90 degree angles.

Paint and decorate as desired. I painted mine white by painting a basecoat on with a brush first, then finishing with white spraypaint. This takes much more spraypaint than it looks--for just one coat, you will probably need upwards of three cans.

Before and After - Note that not all the bins are shown with the finished product