Clay & Playdough Play for Kids

How to Make Playdough Faces for Kids

February 4, 2023

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Playdough faces are often made by kids, but here’s a fun new technique using upturned bowls as a base, plus ideas for decorations!

Updated October 2024

Here’s a fun new way for kids to make playdough faces bigger and more three dimensional.

How? By using an upside-down bowl as the base.

We’ve done something similar in the past, making playdough faces on pumpkins at Halloween time. But using bowls is great for a year-round playdough activity.

Here’s a video showing our playdough faces in progress:

How to Make 3D Playdough Faces

MATERIALS

Mixing bowl
Playdough in multiple colors*
Tools, such as a butter knife, rolling pin, and garlic press
Poke-ins, such as googly eyes, feathers, and beads

*Use this easy, no-cook playdough recipe to make a quick batch or three of play dough. It makes a nice big batch, and the texture is great! However, if you don’t want to make your own, you can obviously buy playdough.

INSTRUCTIONS

Gather your materials
You’ll need playdough and a bowl. The rest is optional.

Note: The size of your bowl depends on how big of a face you want to make. You can do this with a small cereal bowl or with a large mixing bowl. It’s up to you.

Turn your bowl upside down on the table.
Make your face
Use your playdough to make eyes, nose, mouth, etc. for your face and press them to the bowl.

You can cover your entire face with a playdough skin or just add your facial features directly to the bowl.

To make hair, use a garlic press. You can use poke-ins such as googly eyes, buttons, or beads to add detail to your playdough face if you like. Feathers can be a fun embellishment, too!