Coffee for Tots

Alright, so my kids are NOT drinking coffee...yet (it is only a matter of time considering their caffeine addicted parents)...however, we did make "Coffee Dough" this week!

Ingredients:

• one cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup cooled, leftover coffee grounds (I collected the grounds for a few days worth of coffee in a plastic container in the fridge)
• 1/2 cup water or leftover, cooled coffee (I drank all the coffee so we used water)
  

Combine all the ingredients together into a dough. You may need to add extra flour if it is too wet. I sprinkled flour generously on our work surface as well - in this case it was a large, paper Pottery Barn bag that I cut open and laid across my kitchen table. Use a rolling pin or your fingers to flatten the dough. The boys used cookie cutters to make shapes. We also rolled the dough to make beads. Use a toothpick to mold a hole in the bead to string.

The results: Well it is 36 hours later and the dough still hasn't completely hardened. I keep turning the cut out shapes over to see if they will dry faster. They have so far dried into a cool texture and color though. I think when they are all dried and hardened I'll let the boys paint their creations as well. I like the pumpkin shapes and will probably hang them on a ribbon by our front door as a Halloween decoration. Very cute!

Best of all, though, the boys were kept busy (always a plus!), had lots of fun, and got their fingers nice and messy!