Make Modeling Dough from Dryer Lint: A Tutorial
As much as I love many things about autumn, moving my clothes drying indoors is not one of the things I love. My clothes dryer holds fewer clothes than my clothesline does, it takes longer to dry them than a really sunny day does, it doesn’t leave my clothes smelling all nice and fresh and outdoorsy like the actual outdoors does, and it costs me money! And dryer lint? That just pisses me off.
My kiddos, however, love themselves some dryer lint. It’s the older one’s special job to help me by emptying the lint catcher in the dryer, and when she fills her little pail full, we make dryer lint modeling dough. Here’s how:
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You will need: three cups of dryer lint, two cups of water, two cups of cheap-o flour, one teaspoon of cream of tartar, and any extras you want to fold in (see below)
1. Stir together in a pot, while gently heating, the dryer lint, water, flour, and cream of tartar.
2. Stir and stir and stir and stir. The mixture will gradually start to come together and look less like lumps of dryer lint and flour swimming in a soup of water and more like play dough.
3. When the mixture begins to have a dough-y consistency, fold in any extras that you’d like: one or two drops of essential oil (I used eucalyptus this morning when I was feeling stuffy), any amount of large-grained salt (some kids like the extra texture), food coloring (it will bump up the color of your lint dough, but won’t change it drastically), or glitter (because even lint dough likes to be pretty).
4. Dump your lint dough out on a countertop and let it cool.
5. When it’s just warm to the touch, knead it around in your hands for a bit. If the dough is too sticky, gradually knead in more flour; if it’s crumbly, gradually knead in more water.
6. Hand it off to the kiddos, and make yourselves some dough people.
This is a handy little art material, but it generally won’t keep well past a day or two, and let’s face it–it’s no capital P, capital Doh, and it’s a little redneck to be the kind of DIY kit that you put together all pretty under the Christmas tree. But hey, it’s dryer lint–what else were you going to do with that stuff?
Soultravelers3,
My best friend’s mother growing up in Ohio was from Finland. She never had a dryer either. Her basement was lined with clothes lines.
That actually does sound really nice. I LOATHE my dryer.
I do something similar except I use belly button lint. It takes a lot longer to gather.
Great article thanks for sharing!
[...] can make play dough a gazillion kabillion six million ways. Trust me—I have made play dough from laundry lint, and thusly I know my [...]