Slime Play

After a brief EveryChusDay holiday hiatus… we are making up for the break with a whole mini-video series! The girls and I have made an 8-video slime playlist for a comprehensive introduction to making and playing with slime. Slime play is surprisingly therapeutic (check out the huge number of slime ASMR videos online!), and since the girls have become rather expert at slime making over the past year, they both had slime parties for their most recent birthdays. So for anyone curious about making, playing, or partying with slime, this post is for you.

Slime making supplies

Our basic slime recipe requires only 4 ingredients – PVA glue (clear or white), baking soda, colouring and any contact lens solution containing sodium (tetra)borate (commonly called the activator). Borax is banned in Singapore and can cause irritation, so we’ve never used it as an activator. Baking soda + contact lens solution is considered a safer alternative for kids, although I’ve heard it doesn’t keep as long as borax-activated slime. We usually don’t keep our slime for more than a couple of weeks as it can begin to smell interesting if handled and stored for too long.

Here’s our quick video guide to making slime, and as you can see it’s not messy at all once you get the hang of it – in fact you can use the same mixing bowl to make multiple slimes as they should come out cleanly. We did try out a fair few recipes before settling on this one and it’s pretty much foolproof:

The fun part is colouring and accessorizing slime with pigments, glitter, scents and various other additives to create limitless variations on the basic slime. For parties, I order a generous selection of liquid colouring, mica powder pigments, glitters, foil flakes, scented drops and mini sequins…it’s a veritable candy shop of slime goodies for the excited guests.

Having a fun selection of powders and liquids to mix in definitely adds to the feel of brewing up something magical!

There are many other fun additives you can mix into slime, like shaving foam, instant snow, clay, iron fillings, foam beads, slime charms and so on. Shaving foam makes for a particularly puffy, fluffy slime which is much beloved by my girls, so we also included this recipe at their parties (everyone needs an extra-large mixing bowl to make fluffy slime!). We’ve also made some colour-changing slime at home by using thermochromic powder as pigment, which worked well but it’s a little pricey to buy for a party.

In addition to the actual slime ingredients, I provided the necessary mixing apparatus (bowls, spatulas, tongue depressors, and measuring cups and spoons) and a variety of slime containers. 

Trays, disposable plates and aprons were also useful to manage the mess.

Slime games and activities

Although the kids would’ve probably been happy just concocting batches of slime, I decided to throw in a few games since we had the luxury of a big space (rented function room). I wouldn’t advise some of these activities in your own home just in case slime ends up where it shouldn’t. But a clean, hard-floored outdoor space would work well too.

Small space slime activities:

Bubble blowing, farting slime and word scrambling are very manageable if you just have a bit of tabletop space.

Large space slime activities

If you’ve got a bit more room (and no soft furnishings within reach), you can have a go at slime noodles, slime splat and giant slime bubbles – which are seriously impressive when successful! For the latter two, it may be best to have some slime made in advance as you need larger quantities to play.

Here are a few other fun slime activities we’ve tried but which require more time than a party allows for:

Making clear slimes

Crystal clear slimes are made using the basic recipe (with clear glue) and just a couple of drops of liquid colouring. When mixing, slime always traps lots of air bubbles into the mix, which is why it’s almost impossible to get a perfectly clear slime straight out of the mixing bowl. However, just leave your slime to sit in a container for a few days (3-5 days should be sufficient) and you should find that almost all the air bubbles have risen out of the slime surface, leaving you with perfectly clear slime.

Making gradient (ombre) slime

Making slime bouncy balls

This requires a bit of patience and isn’t easy to get right. It requires soaking a blob of coloured PVA glue in a bath of contact lens solution and baking soda until the slime hardens sufficiently to create a firm ball. However, it can be difficult to get a piece of slime to harden evenly and then squash it into a ball shape without too many cracks. Which is why we have not made a video of this process yet!

We use a Japanese riceball shaker to knock our blobs of slime into perfect spheres, then let them marinate further in the saline solution in the fridge or freezer in a round ice cube tray to get a nice sphere.

They really are quite bouncy! The only thing is that as they warm up they tend to soften quite quickly…at least in Singapore. Perhaps this activity works better in colder climes.

Making butter slime

You can also create slime “art” by mixing slime with varying amounts of air-drying clay, often referred to as “butter slime”. We’ve made costume amulets and colourful “slime pebbles” by mixing our basic slime with Daiso clay – the more clay you add, the harder your creation will dry. It can take a couple of days for the slime-clay mix to fully harden though. Little Miss enjoys using slime a bit like play dough with piping bags and cookie cutters to create pretend confectionery. 

Making slime also provides a fun and easy opportunity for a bit of scientific experimentation. Depending on a child’s age they can start to understand the cross-linking chemical reaction happening between PVA’s long chain molecules and borate ions, explore changes in viscosity with different ingredient ratios, and play with the shear-thickening properties of this non-newtonian fluid which flows beautifully under low pressure but snaps satisfyingly under high pressure. 

So I think that pretty much rounds up our EveryChusDay guide to Slime Play – an inexpensive treasure trove of creative fun, learning and stress therapy all in one. What’s not to love?