Summer Fun Activity: Homemade Slime

It’s the first week of summer around here and my girls’ very first request was to “make a craft!” I love to craft, so I guess the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the tree, although I likely wouldn’t have chosen what they settled on: SLIME!  Glittery slime at that!

This is a sweetly surprisingly simple activity; one we settled on because we happened to have all two ingredients on hand!  Score! Well, truly it’s three ingredients, but who counts water!? Ya’ll should have that on hand.

Ingredients:

1. Glue
2. Borax
3. Water

Method:

1. Empty 1 bottle of glue into a large bowl.  We used a plastic bowl so little hands could be in charge and nothing would go crash.  We also used colored glitter glue, which yielded bright, glittery results!  This allowed us to skip coloring the slime. If you use a bottle of glue that isn’t pre-colored and want colorful slime – and who wouldn’t!? – mix in a few drops of food coloring.
2. Mix 1 tablespoon water into the glue.
3. In a separate measuring cup, dissolve 1/2 – 1 teaspoon borax in 1 cup warm water. The more borax you use, the more firm your slime will be.  We found just shy of 1 teaspoon worked well for us. Experiment – that’s half the fun!
4. Pour the borax and water mixture into the glue and water mixture, and tell those little hands to start mixing and kneading. You will see the glue almost immediately seize up due to the borax catalyst. Voila – the beginnings of your slime! Work quickly; the longer the slime sits in the borax, the more firm it will become. Depending on the age of your little helper hands, you may want to help scrape the glue away form the sides of the bowl so that things move along quickly.
5. Remove the slime from the remaining water and borax mixture. If in doubt, remove it earlier than later.  It seemed to us to continue to firm up when played with, and you can always give it another dip in the borax bath if it’s too runny.
6. Play, play, play with that weirdly slimy slime!
7. Store in an airtight container for continued fun.

There are varying recipes for slime on the internet – some claim to be non-toxic and “edible.” Because my girls are beyond putting everything in their mouth for a taste test, I was comfortable using borax. If you have wee ones that may venture a taste, it may be worth researching one of these non-toxic recipes.

Now that you’re hooked on this super simple summer -fun activity, go make another batch and experiment with different variations of slime. We hear that you can use glow in the dark glue, mix in your own glitter, or replace the food coloring with craft paint!

Come to think of it, this isn’t limited to a summer activity at all; we think little containers of red and green slime for Christmas, or glow in the dark slime for Halloween, would be a big hit!

Fun to make, fun to give, fun to play with. Enjoy!

Mollie is a wife to a wonderful man and stay at home Mama to two beautiful and energetic little girls. She has lived in South Orange County for most of her life and enjoys crafting, running, clean and natural living, party planning, and being involved in her community and church. She believes that being a Mom was and is her highest calling and attempts to give her girls a wide array of different experiences. From soccer cleats to tutus, running races to finding the perfect hair bow, she wants them to grow up knowing that they can be both girly and strong.