How To Make A Dorodango

A dorodango is a mud ball, usually about the size of a billiard ball. Just like how American kids make mud pies, Japanese children make dorodango. They are rising in popularity as of lately in the United States however many people still haven't heard of it. It is a fascinating process that teaches patience due to the long time and amount of care it takes to create a dorodango. Now a dorodango doesn't take any tricky items at all. All you need is mud and... water. That along with a lot of patience makes it a lot of fun and work at the same time. Seeing something that's actually very beautiful made out of nothing but mud and water is pretty amazing.

The ingredients for this task are probably found right in your backyard!

• Water
• Dirt
• Time/Patience

Those are the bare minimum to create one as I use a couple squares of a paper towle and a ziplock bag, this just helps speed up the process.

First of all what you will want to do is take your dirt and mix it with some water, having a bowl will help this go a lot smoother. Then mix it up REALLY good, you want to get water at an even consistency and this will take a little more mixing that you think. So once you are for sure you got it nice and mixxd up, it should feel just like dough, then you will want to start squeezing it up in your hands. Once you got it nice and sort of sticky in your hands then you will want to start forming your ball.

This is the trickiest part from what I have found and messed up many dorodango's at. You need to start to form a sphere shape out of the mud. If there is a crack in it and it feels like its a little moist still, I usually just smash it up and re do as this dries the middle a lot better especially if you do this a couple times. Then the middle won't be as damp thus causing once your outside starts to get hard cause it to crack. Although if you do this too much then it won't hold together. You need to get a feel for this and that alone could take a long time.

When you are forming it make sure to just shift it around in your hands evenly rubbing on all sides. This will help it dry and get hard, plus it will smooth it down and make it more appealing. You should do this for at least 2 hours or until it feels like it might not loose its shape too badly if you set it down.

Once you get it that hard you can if you want it to go quicker wrap it in a paper towel then put it in a zip lock bag and put it in the refrigerator for like 3 - 5 minutes. This will remove a lot of the moisture inside of it and bring it out while the paper towel will absorb some of it and make it a little drier than normal. Once you are done you should spin it around for another hour or so until it dries a little more. Then once it is you can repeat the process as necessary until you get the correct amount of moisture. If you do it too much it will crumble apart but if not enough then it will be too soft.

Once you are done with that you can polish it off! This is what gives it that brilliant shine. Just take a soft cloth and start rubbing. You need to judge what is too hard and what is not hard enough on your own because every one will be different. Just be patient and keep rubbing down and it and it will shine and that's it your done!

I still haven't exactly made a ton of these yet but its good fun teaching people how its done. If you do anything and find an easier way to make them please share your tips/tricks and stories ill make sure to add anything useful! Thanks in advanced for the information.