Homemade moldable sand

Moldable sand-2

Eva has pretty much always loved going to the playgroud and playing in the sand. I’ve often thought about getting her a big traditional sandbox, but we don’t have much room on the balcony and since we live in an apartment on the third floor, there is no garden to put it in either. That’s why I’ve made her a small storage bin sandbox which she can play with on the balcony when the weather allows for it. It’s a great solution which works really well for us, but since we store the sandbox inside, the sand is always really dry and not really suited for molding, which is Eva’s favourite part of playing with sand.

Fortunally I came across one little project. They were trying out different recipes for kinetic sand, and eventhough I was not going for a kinetic sand feel, I liked the way some of the sand looked. So I gave it a go. And I’m glad I did. Eva loves her sand. It doesn’t stick to her hands as much as wet sand, and it’s very nice and moldable. It’s not like kinetic sand, but it doesn’t bother her – she just likes it for what it is and she is just thrilled to be able to play with it on our balcony when the weather is up for it (and we don’t have time to go to the park).

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Recipe: Moldable sand

The recipe calls for sand, oil and flour. I has so far lasted us two months without any problems and it still smells nice. I added some tee trea oil, which I’d seen somewhere had been suggested (sorry, can’t remember where), as it is antibacterial.

You’ll need:

  • 5 parts fine play sand (you might need to strain the sand to get small stones etc out if you ca’t find fine play sand)
  • 1-1,5 parts vegetable or baby oil (how much you’ll need depends on the consistensy you want – start with 2 dl)
  • 3 parts regular white wheat flou
  • Optional: a few drops of tee trea oil (I used 5 drops for about 5 dl sand / 2 cups sand)

For a small storage bin I used:

  • 10 dl (about 4,2 cups) play sand
  • 2-3 dl (about 0,8-1,2 cups) rapeseed oil
  • 6 dl (about 2,5 cups) regular white wheat flour
  • Optional: 10 drops of tea tree oil

The sand will keep for months – so far ours has lasted us 4 months and it still feels and smells the same.

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How to:

It’s pretty straight forward to make this moldable sand.

  1. Combine all of the ingredients in the container you are going to use to store the sand in. Start with 1 part oil – you can always add more. We used a small storage bin with a lid to mix and store the moldable sand in.
  2. Mix it all together until the lumps are gone. We started out mixing the sand with a spoon, but ended out using our hands for the last bit.
  3. That’s it. You’re all done.

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Pop in some fun molds and different tools and you’re ready to go! Eva’s spent quite a lot of time playing with this and even though some sand has been spilled, it’s been easy to clean up, so there’s really no excuse to not give this a try.

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