the thing about yetis + edible play dough yeti craft!

The Thing About Yetis by Vin Vogel (2015).

The title of this book refers to yetis plural, but we get to follow one particular yeti and his little furry buddy to illustrate all the things about yetis.

 

And the thing is, yetis love winter. They are abominable snowmen after all. But let it be known this pair is not abominable at all! Cute and zany are the words that come to mind.

 

 

 

 

(click image(s) to enlarge)

They’re downright childlike! Our yeti loves hot chocolate and snow castles and pretending to be Godzilla. Our yeti plays in the snow with human kids in the most good-natured way.

 

He may be built for the cold, but winter can be a bit much even for him—our yeti gets pretty poofy when his fur finally dries after a day in the drifts.

 

Our yeti can even become down in the dumps with all that snow.

 

Which leads us to a little known fact: yetis love summer! Our yeti loves sand castles too!

This is a book for winter and dreaming of summer. Or for summer and dreaming of winter. Or really, any time you feel like following a sweet, cute-pie yeti who likes to pretend he’s Godzilla.

 

Big thanks to Penguin Young Readers for images!

 

+

The minute I saw this book, I thought, “Yeti craft!” And then I thought, “Edible yeti craft!”

These sweeties are made from edible play dough. And while I wouldn’t recommend eating them whole (definitely not!), if little hands get in little mouths, this recipe makes it safe. I also took edible to heart and completed the craft with candy. Everything is edible!

The play dough was very simple to make and so therapeutic to play around with.

What you need:

For the play dough:

A 12 ounce tub of whipped topping (I used Cool Whip)

3/4 of a 16 ounce box of cornstarch

2 Tablespoons of olive oil

Bowl

Wooden spoon

For the big yeti’s face:

2 Blue candy melts

2 mini chocolate chips

Dab-N-Hold edible adhesive

1 pink Sweet Tarts Chewy

Toothpick

For the little yeti:

2 mini chocolate chips

1 pink gummy candy

2 blue Sweet Tarts (earmuffs!)

Winter setting:

Toblerone snow capped chocolate mountains 

Powdered sugar (or flour or mini marshmallows…)

Summer setting:

Sweet Tarts Chewy candies (or any colorful candy for sand)

Seashell chocolates

Orange/yellow gummy sun

You can, of course, play around with all this and make it totally your own with what you’ve got on hand.

To make the play dough, I followed this recipe from Kids Activities Blog. Combine a whole (thawed) tub of whipped topping and the olive oil and then add in corn starch mixing with a wooden spoon. You can add corn starch bit by bit until it gets to a consistency that’s easy to work with. Then, shape your yetis by rolling a big ball of dough and squishing it into an oval. Then taper the top part slightly. Next, roll three small tubes of dough and adhere them to the respective yeti’s heads as hair.

For the faces, luckily all the candy sticks right into the dough! It’s that simple! For big yeti’s eyeballs though, I used Dab-N-Hold to adhere the mini chocolate chips in place. Finally, use a toothpick to carve simple mouths into their faces. That’s it! Then rip open some bags of candy and set whatever scene you’d like!

Voila!

 

Putting them in snow was so much fun (and worth the clean up). I also can’t help but smile at little yeti’s candy earmuffs.

 

And we can’t forget a summer scene too! Yetis also love the beach.

 

 

 

My favorite detail is that chocolate mountain range. To yetis!