Salt Dough Recipe Made with Crayons

 If you’ve been following us for a while, you know that we have a small love of homemade play dough.  (And by small, I mean huge).  Not only that, we have a tendency to melt down crayons and create bold, bright, and beautifully soft crayon play dough.  We’ve made metallic sparkly crayon play dough and dough with every shade of red crayon that there is.  We’ve even melted down crayons and made crayon floam dough for a super fun sensory dough.  Today, we’re sharing our latest crayon experiment:   Crayon Salt Dough!  This salt dough recipe is a version of our crayon play dough that is tinted with the wax of crayons, giving it a bright and bold hue.  So, HOW do you make salt dough with crayons?  Read on!


How do you make colored salt dough? Use melted crayons for the brightest and softed sensory play dough salt dough recipe there is! Kids will love to use this colored salt dough to make ornaments, manipulatives, and creative play items, all with crayon salt dough!

How to make salt dough dyed with bright and bold colors of Crayons?  


to make our Crayon Salt Dough, we used portions of our crayon play dough technique.  I’m including affiliate links for some items you may need to purchase to make this Crayon Salt Dough.  

We used a few materials in this sensory dough recipe:

2-3 chopped crayons crayons
(This is the tried and true brand that works for all the crayon doughs that we’ve made.) I say 2-3 because we used broken crayons that have seen their days of coloring book fame gone.  In other words, they are the bits and pieces of crayons that are floating around the bottom of the crayon bin.  I’ve found that a difference of 2 or 3 crayons does not matter all that much when it comes to bright and vivid colors you will get from using crayons to dye play dough or salt dough.

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 cup salt
2 cups flour
1 cup water


Now, when we made our salt dough, we made a few different colors.  So, instead of using the measurements above, I had the kids measure out all of the ingredients and then divide the dry ingredients into three different bowls.  I then made three batches of salt dough.  You could do the same to make a few different colors…and with a huge box of gorgeous crayons, you’ll probably want a few different bright and beautiful colors.  I will describe the instructions on making just one batch of crayon salt dough so that measurements are not confused.

How do you make colored salt dough? Use melted crayons for the brightest and softed sensory play dough salt dough recipe there is! Kids will love to use this colored salt dough to make ornaments, manipulatives, and creative play items, all with crayon salt dough!


Crayon Salt Dough Crayon Play Dough Recipe

Prepare the dry ingredients:  Mix together in a bowl, the 1 cup salt and 2 cups flour.  Set the dry ingredients aside.  Peel the wrapper from and chop up the 2-3 crayons.  Pour the 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil into a sauce pan.  We found the cheapest sauce pan
that we could and use it for all of our kitchen experiments.  (i.e. I would not use it for cooking actual food!)  Turn on the burner and add the chopped crayon to the oil.  Do not let the oil heat up too much!  Stir while adding 1 cup of water.  Continue stirring and slowly add in the dry mixture.  Stir until the dough begins to lump together.  Dump out onto parchment paper or other surface.  Allow the dough to cool to touch.  Knead the dough until smooth.  Then knead a little more.  If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour in 1/4 cup increments.

How do you make colored salt dough? Use melted crayons for the brightest and softed sensory play dough salt dough recipe there is! Kids will love to use this colored salt dough to make ornaments, manipulatives, and creative play items, all with crayon salt dough!
Start to play!
How do you make colored salt dough? Use melted crayons for the brightest and softed sensory play dough salt dough recipe there is! Kids will love to use this colored salt dough to make ornaments, manipulatives, and creative play items, all with crayon salt dough!
We used our dough to create number manipulatives using number cookie cutters.  They are still drying, but we have big plans for these cuties!  Be sure to stop back soon to see how we’re using them in all kinds of counting and ordering games.  We let these cut outs dry for several days on wax paper.  I was hesitant to try slow heating them in the oven like a typical salt dough recipe because of the wax content.  I like my oven a little too much for that experiment!

This post is part of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series.  See what the other bloggers have made with salt dough: 

Galaxy Salt Dough | Lemon Lime Adventures
Salt Dough Memories | Study at Home Mama
Scented Salt Dough Pendants | Raising Lifelong Learners
Salt Dough Seashells | Creative World of Varya
Microwave Salt Dough | In The Playroom
Nature Printing with Salt Dough | Squiggles and Bubbles






You may want to see our other Crayon Dough Recipes:



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If you like the idea of using your broken crayon pieces in something as fun and creative as play dough, then you will love to try a few different ideas, too.  We’ve given crayon play dough a run for it’s fun and tried a few different versions.  Check them out and if you make a batch, let us know how you get creative with crayon play dough!

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