Did you love playing with silly putty as a kid? Do you have kids who love playing with it now?
Feeling that soft, ooey, gooey goodness squish between your fingers while you shape it, squish it, stamp it — really, you can do whatever you want with it! The point is, putty is a fun way to use the imagination, satisfy sensory needs, and have some inexpensive and easy family fun!
Are you ready to make a super soft and totally customizable silly putty? This is a great activity for the kids to join in on; they will love the measuring, mixing, and learning through play! Putty is a great way to encourage young minds to be curious and imaginative while they are playing.
DIY Silly Putty
What you’ll need:
- ½ cup yogurt (no fruit chunks)
- ⅔ cup cornstarch
- 1 tsp carrier oil of your choice
- 3 drops of KidSafe synergy or KidSafe single essential oil of your choice
What you’ll do:
Mix together the carrier oil and essential oil then add to the yogurt and cornstarch. Get a little messy — use your hands to mix, knead, and roll the ingredients together until it is no longer sticky. Add additional cornstarch if it is too sticky; if it is too dry, add a bit more yogurt. When you’ve reached the consistency you want, have fun playing with your all natural silly putty!
Please note that this silly putty is not meant to be stored. Have fun creating a new batch for each playtime! Feel free to experiment with different KidSafe oils each time to figure out what works best for you and your kids.
So, you have your putty — now it’s time to play! Here are a few game ideas to get you and your family started!
Treasure Hunting:
Take a small toy, bead, coin, or other object, and hide it inside the putty without your child watching. Now they have to get their hands inside the putty to find the treasure! For younger children, supervision is necessary when playing with small objects. For older children, or multiple children, use a timer and have them race to beat the clock!
Budding Builders:
Grab a handful of toothpicks and use the putty to build a tiny house or tower. Putty is very pliable, so don’t expect the structure to last long — but it is sure fun to see what kind of quick architecture everyone can come up with before it all falls down!
Copy Cat:
Especially great for younger children, this game uses putty to make identical shapes and figures from one player to the next. The first player molds a bit of putty into a shape, like a triangle, and the other player makes the same shape with their putty. This can also be a fun way to practice learning letters and numbers.
Watch one of our Certified Aromatherapists, Retha Nesmith, make this craft on this video, posted June 25th, 2018:
How do you and your kids like to play with putty? Let us know in the comments below!
Another person, here, wondering if dairy-free yogurt can be used with this? If there’s no answer to me either in the next couple of days, I’ll post an update on our experiments for other dairy-free households.
We haven’t tried this recipe with dairy-free yogurt, so I’m not sure how it will work. Be sure to let us know how your experiments turn out!
My daughter will love this! Thank you.
Just printed this to make the next time my crafty sister comes over to do a project with my kids. This time, I have the craft planned! They are going to love it! Thanks PT!
Wow! I had no idea you could do this! Thanks for the stocking stuffer idea!
My daughter is 4 and we just made this! She had fun making it and now is playing with it. I can see her playing with this all day. We had vanilla yogurt and she wanted vanilla sent and it smells so good! She loves playdoh so this is a nice, safe alternative.
That’s great Lauren! So happy she had fun making the silly putty. Simple and fun!
Tried this with my three kids today. My middle son who has an issue with textures looked at me with wide eyes as I was mixing it and said please don’t make me touch that. My other two loved it though. Not too messy and kept them busy for about an hour.
How sticky is this?
It’s not too sticky. It doesn’t stick to my hands or anything, it feels more like putty than slime.
I can’t wait to try this! I’m going to hunt the pantry for cornstarch and see if I can do it this afternoon haha
Thanks for sharing, Christie! We hope it is fun to make!
Just tried this with my kids (age 2 & 3)… added Tension Tamer to ease their tension and my headache. Had to use about triple the cornstarch, but finally got a really good “playdoh” consistency. Maybe my ratio was weird because of the type of yogurt? Either way… they are happy, and I am happy. Thanks Plant Therapy for a fun project!
oh I am definitely going to do this next time grandson comes as he gets bored – might use A+ Attention for the EO
We hope you guys enjoy it!!
I can’t believe this uses yogurt! I never never expected to see that ingredient! Now I’m so excited to try this, we always have yogurt in the house and now it’s safe for even the littles! What a fun surprise and recipe!
I loved making this with my boys! i have a child with autism and so we stay away from certain ingredients so that means he cant play with the store bought ones. I add Nighty Night synergy to help with calming his CNS. I can see us making this a lot!
Hopefully you enjoy it! It’s a lot of fun to play with.
Thanks for this recipe, great idea for all these hot days we’re trying to stay inside!
We hope you have fun, Jessica!
Looks like a fun activity for the kids (and adult kids 🙂 ) . Going to have to try this with my daughter.
I know it says to use kid-safe EO, but I still worry. Is it safe for kids to play with this for a prolonged period of time?
It should be fine to play with this for half an hour to an hour. 🙂
this was silly and fun! we did lavender in our putty and it turned out great! kids were occupied while i got school work done. thanks!
That’s great, Melissa! So glad it helped you out and your kiddos had fun — thank you for sharing with us!
My kids said it smelled weird, but I thought it just smelled like yogurt. They had fun squishing it for a few hours though. I loved how quick and easy it was to make.
My grandson will love helping to make this putty. Going to do it our next afternoon together. Thanks Plant Therapy for safe fun activities.
You are so welcome, Karen! We hope you two have fun!
I work with kids and this silly putty sounds great! I would NEVER have thought of using yoghurt! SO clever!
We hope you enjoy it! It’s a lot of fun to play with, even for adults!
Cannot wait for my littles to wake up and try this! Thank you for the idea!!
We hope you guys enjoy it! Have fun!
Oh my goodness! I can’t wake to make this with my granddaughter.
We hope you two have fun with it, Jeanne!
This looks so fun! Do you think a Greek yoghurt would work fine? I have lemon Greek yoghurt (smooth no chunks) in the fridge that needs using.
Greek yogurt should work just fine! As long as their are no chunky fruits or anything it, it should turn out great!
This sounds like a lot of fun, can’t wait to try it!!
Thank you for sharing, Cathy! We hope you have fun with it!
I don’t have any kids, but I think I have to make this for myself to play with! 🙂
I don’t blame you, Kristen! Silly putty is fun for everyone!
I can’t wait to try this with my daughter ! She loves anything squishy and smelly!
We hope you two have fun with it! Thank you for sharing, Jenny!
I can’t wait to try this with my grandson!
Thank you for sharing, Rose! We hope you guys have lots of fun making the putty!
We did tons of oil infused slime and putty last year. It was so calming for the kids.
That’s so great to hear, Teesha! Thank you for sharing!
This sounds like so much fun! I want to try it with my grapefruit EO!
That sounds like a wonderful idea, Natalie! This DIY is so great because you can change it up with every batch and try different oils to find out what you like best!
I have to try this. I think my toddlers will love this.
This will be a perfect DYI to do with my kids over this coming winter, Thank you!
Jasmine, this would be a great winter time DIY, when everyone is getting bored from being inside! Plus, there are some great oils you can experiment with to make your putty smell more winter-like. For instance, Balsam Fir, Vanilla Oleoresin, and Orange Sweet are a few oils that always remind me of the holidays. Thank you for sharing!
This looks great! I can’t wait to try it with the kids.
Thank you for sharing, Liz! We hope you guys have fun with it!
This is so cute! going to do this with my students!
Thank you for sharing, Kelsie! I hope you and your students have a lot of fun making this silly putty!
This is fantastic! Putting this in my back pocket for the day when my little one isn’t eating everything she gets her hands on
My LO will love this!
Glad to hear it, Angela! Have fun and thank you for sharing!
This is great! We don’t have any dairy in our house. What is it in the yoghurt that makes the slime? Can we use a dairy-free yogurt? Thanks!!
Love this idea!!
Thank you, Jenni! We hope you have fun with it!
My kids are going to LOVE this! They love mixing things together and love their oils even more. Can’t wait.
Ok so …we tried it ….it was at first an Epic DIY fail! I wish I had the hindsight to have added purple food coloring. My son, who is blessed with autism and loves playdoh and silly putty because of the sensory input, helped me to mix the ingredients. He also happens to be very into The Cat in the Hat movie. There is a scene at the end with Alec Baldwin where he is covered in purple goo and says “they destroyed the house “. So if you have seen the movie that’s what are hands looked like and my son is staring in horror at his hands saying, “eew, sticky, ” then proceeds to stand up with hands in the air perfectly imitating Alec Baldwin by saying, “destroyed the house ” repeatedly until we cleaned him up….lol. It didn’t help when my husband walked into the kitchen and gave me the dad look like I was a child that just made a gigantic mess and he didn’t know how to handle it. Lol!
I am going to try this one more time and see if it goes better with some tweaking. The cornstarch did not want to mix with the yogurt so it created a very weird combination of sticky and gooey….not relaxing at all. I let my son help me to mix and pour. So the majority of the corn starch was beside the yogurt or on the edge of the bowl. Once it made contact with a little bit of liquid it did not want to budge from the bowl or be mixed. I played with it for about 30 minutes and it started binging together but still really sticky. I added another teaspoon of oil and now it looks like silly putty but still sticks and leaves a powdery coating on my fingers. Good news it’s easy clean up. On my next attempt I’m going to try folding all the ingredients into the yogurt and using a spoon not my hands. I think this is a great recipe for really little ones that still put items in their mouth. The aromatic part is very nice too. Probably the reason I am not freaking out lol. I was immersed in essential oil sensory land of sticky goo.
Oh no! It can definitely be trial and error. Hopefully it works out better the second time around!
I avoid cornstarch in myhouse. Do you think arrowroot powder would work? I’m thinkg of doing this just for my own fun!
This is perfect for us today as it’s a rainy day here going to make this today with my kiddos!
We hope you have fun, Cristy! Let us know how it turns out!
Oh!! My kids will be so excited! Thank you!
We hope you all have fun with it, Jenn! Thank you for your comment!
Will try! Thanks!
We hope you have lots of fun with it, Jill! Have a great day!
Sounds like fun! I’ll have to keep this for the grandkids!
Thank you for sharing, Jaye! We hope you all have fun with it!
Can’t wait to try this with my kiddos! It will make for a great activity while we wait out the excessive summer heat. PJ’s Blend or Coco’s Blend will be fun Kid Safe choices for this craft.
Those are great ideas for blends to add your putty! They will smell so yummy! We hope you and your kiddos have fun, thank you for sharing!
Ooh, how fun! This will be a fun project to do with my kiddos.
We hope your kids love it! Plus, it’s fun to try different oils with this DIY and learn the ones you like best to play with. Thank you for sharing, Rebecca!
I’ve never heard of using yogurt to make silly putty! I have everything for this, so excited to try.
Christina, thank you for sharing! Let us know how it turns out!
This looks like fun! I am excited to try w my 2 yr old son tonight. Always looking for new fun things to keep him busy!!
We are so glad you and your son are going to give this a try! It’s a lot of squishy fun! Thank you for sharing!
How did it go!? I have a 2 year old daughter and am looking forward to trying this! Did it turn out well?? 🙂
This looks like so much fun! Will do when the niece and nephew visit again. 🙂
Hi, Jenn! We hope you all have fun giving this DIY a try — let us know how it turns out!
My kids love putty, I can’t wait to make this with them.
Sara, we hope you guys enjoy this little activity! It’s a great way to involve Oils and fun!
good rainy day project!
Yes! Perfect idea for a nice, fun and relaxing activity indoors
Sounds like fun! The yogurt is throwing me a bit off but why not? 🙂
Kelly, yogurt is a bit of a silly ingredient — But that’s one of the reasons we thought you all would love it! If you give it a try, let us know how it turns out!
This is cool. I am so going to try this one!
We hope you give it a try, Nicole! It’s a great family activity and a fun way to use Essential Oils 🙂
Love this idea!
Isn’t this fun, Melanie? Give it a try! It’s a fun little activity the whole family can enjoy
My almost 10 year old will love this!!!
OMG!!! I love it!!! Wish my kid wasn’t 23 years old!!!
Going to try this today for my 3 littles.
definitely going to try this
I had no idea you could make silly putty! Definitely going to try this next time my daughter has friends over!
The possibilities are endless, aren’t they? We think your daughter and her friends will absolutely love this activity during a play date or sleep over. Have a lovely weekend
Is the texture similar to store Silly Putty or more like homemade slime?
It definitely has a texture that is more similar to a putty than a slime. Enjoy whipping this one up with your littles! Have a great weekend.
Can’t wait to try this!
Everyone loves getting a little silly, right? We hope you enjoy making it! Have a lovely weekend
This sounds so fun. Going to save it and bring it out on a day tgat we have the summer blues….
Twila, that is a perfect idea! Thank you for sharing!