DIY slime made from glue and starch
A while ago, I was watching the kids on a rainy Saturday. There were so many fun things we wanted to do outside, but there we were, stuck indoors. Fortunately, the kids had found videos on how to make slime a few weeks before. This seemed like the perfect time to try some out.
Choosing a Recipe
The most common recipes I saw online involved glue and Borax. Now, I’ve researched a little more since then, and Borax is probably safe. But at the time, knowing only that we used Borax for cleaning laundry, I wasn’t crazy about using it in something that might end up (accidentally or on purpose) in my kid’s mouth.
Apparently I was not a alone, because there are plenty of online slime recipes that specify ‘without Borax.’ So we decided on this one: glue and liquid laundry starch, and (optionally) food coloring.
For the glue, we used Elmer’s Glue-All, the normal school glue you’re used to. It’s non-toxic and cleans up easily with water. The white kind works fine, but since we were at the store anyway, I picked up some of the new clear kind, thinking it might result in some cool translucent-looking slime.
We also picked up liquid laundry starch. Most of the spray starch at the grocery store was aerosol, but we did find one brand in a pump-spray bottle. I don’t know if aerosol would have worked or not, but the pump-spray bottle gives you the option to unscrew the top and pour out as much as you need.
Mixing it up
Before we started, I cut open a few plastic grocery bags to use as a waterproof disposable play-surface. This was probably overkill, as the slime didn’t turn out to be that big of a mess, and it cleaned up pretty easily. Then we mixed some glue and starch in a roughly 1-to-1 ratio (about half a bottle of glue) in a stainless mixing bowl. We added a dash of water (I’m not sure what the water did, and if it was necessary, but it was in the video we watched) and 2 drops of blue food coloring. With a lot more food coloring, you can probably get to an opaque Nickelodeon-style slime. Since our goal was a more Ghostbusters-like translucent spooky slime, the less food coloring, the better. You might be able to mix it up with a spoon, but the point of slime is to feel the sliminess, so get your hands in there and mix with your fingers. In a minute or two, it will begin feeling solid, but still stretchy and malleable.
Ours turned out great on the first try: goopy, gross looking, but not too sticky. It’s easy to try adding a little more glue or a little more starch to see how that changes the feel. We made it into shapes, stretched it, and tried to bounce it. It was good fun for a while, but after 20 minutes we realized there isn’t a whole lot more to do with slime. The good news is it stores great in a ziplock bag. So if the kids want to mess with it later (which they did), we’ve got it already mixed up. If the slime is a little too sticky, a quick spritz of spray starch will fix it.
Overall, it was lots of fun to make, but not really a long-lasting activity. If there was something else fun we should have done with it, let me know in the comments.