Flubber

January 10, 2012

"The weather outside is frightful…"

Here in central Illinois, we've had rain, rain and more rain! No fun snowmen to build, no sledding, just a big, muddy mess. So, we've turned to indoor activities to keep us (me, mainly) sane. One of my "rules" is to have a kid project at least twice a week – that way, when I need a few minutes of kid-free time to finish up one of my projects, I can promise them that we'll soon be doing something fun that's just for them! Making flubber turned out to be a spectacular success!! Even my kids agreed – the oldest said, "This was a super fun project, Mommy. I just love gross play dough."

(This is what we called the Flubber we made using a recipe I found here.) Gross play dough indeed – it is hard to believe that we started with two completely liquid mixtures, added them together . . . and initially got this:

. . . which quickly took over the entire bowl . . .

. . . and finally ended up as this rubbery, squishy, moldable but oozing pile of awesome! They loved it – the little one doesn't speak much English (at least as I interpret), but he played with it for nearly an hour.

So, here are my tips for the recipe:

I found that the original recipe would have made a HUGE amount of one color. So, I took the original recipe and divided it by 3, to make 3 different colors. Here's text of the recipe (in case my cool graphic is too small to read!):

Flubber:

In first bowl, mix together:

mix 2/3 c. Elmer's Glue

1/3 c. + 8 tsp. warm water

food coloring

In second bowl, mix together:

1 tsp. borax

1/3 c. warm water

combine two mixtures

stir if desired, or just sit and watch the magic happen

once all ingredients have become on big blob,

knead to remove excess moisture

Now, play!

These three colors fit into one 32 oz yogurt tub for storage. I also accidentally bought Elmer's Glue-All for one of my bottles of glue (you'll need about 2 and 1/3 big bottles), instead of regular Elmer's. The batch made with straight Glue-All was way more watery, but I could still pick up the blob and knead it, there was just lots of water left in the bowl.

I used glass bowls and plastic forks because I wasn't sure what the magic behind this little project would do to my "real" dishware and cutlery. The kids thought this was so fun, I'm sure we'll be making more and more! I've got to find a way to buy Elmer's by the gallon! The yogurt container keeps it nice and gross…er, I mean fresh. Bonus – when you flip it over and squish it out, it flattens into that nice circle I used as a backdrop for the recipe!

Post by Cameron : Homemade by Cameron