My boys like to do crafts and learn how to make things, like how to make silly putty. Little Miss is away at camp, so I had to come up with some boy crafts to do this week. My boys like slimey, gooey crafts. What boy doesn’t like to make stuff like that. I decided we would learn how to make silly putty this week. The 11 year old had a great time and thought this was so cool. I am not sure who liked it more the 3 year old or the 11 year old.
Silly Putty Ingredients:
1 Tblsp Borax
1 Cup Water
1 Tablespoon Water
1 Tablespoon Glue
a few drops Food Color (optional)
How to Make Silly Putty:
1. Take and warm 1 cup of water in the microwave for about a min. You want it warm, but not hot.
2. Add one Tablespoon of Borax and dissolve completely. This takes a little while.
3. Place 1 Teaspoon of water in a ziplock bag. Then add 1 tablespoon glue (elmer’s works the best) and Tablespoon borax and water mixture. Add 3-4 drops of child’s favorite food coloring. We choose yellow and blue.
4. This is the fun part of this craft. Squish all that up for about two minutes or less. The boys thought this was so cool and squishy. What boy doesn’t like squishy.
5. Take out the gluey mix and start to kneed it in your hands. Both of the boys thought this was so cool to pull and stretch the slimy silly putty. Why do boys like squishy, slimy stuff?
6. Store the silly putty in a plastic Easter egg for safe keeping. If the silly putty is left out on the counter for a long period of time like little face did, just put a few more drops of water in the egg and store. It will come right back.
That is how to make silly putty using a few simple ingredients you have around the house. Borax can be used for crafts too. Learn how Borax is a used to make crystal ornaments from Borax. I would say Borax is something you need to have around the house for great crafts and extra cleaning ability.
If you don’t have any, then here is your chance to try to win a coupon for a FREE box of Borax Laundry Booster. Simple fill out the form below. You can choose how many entries you want to enter to win. All entries are verified and available to US residents 18 or older only. Contest will be over on July 22 at 11:59. 3 Winners will be chosen 48 hours after contest. Share this awesome giveaway with your friends. You cannot win if you don’t play by the rules. What are you waiting on, enter today!
Disclosuer: Thanks to Borax for supplying me with a box to try. No other compensation was given. All thoughts and opinions and pictures in this article are my own.
I love borax! I use it for all sorts of things – laundry detergent – ant killer – scrubbing the toilet. Good stuff. 🙂 Visiting from The Thriftiness Miss.
I love Borax! I am a fairly new borax user. I use it to boost my clothes washing and it works great. I use it also to scrub my tub and bath mat all nice and white! I am loving it so far and can’t wait to discover what other uses I can use it for. I would LOVE To win this!!
I love using borax around the home and who knew you could make your own silly putty? Great post!
I would use borax to make my own laundry deterget. Thank you for the chance to win!
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I will use it to make laundry detergent and also to make carpet cleaner! It works great. I’ve been using it for years and it’s one of those products that has dozens of uses!
I’ve always wanted to dry Borax for laundry detergent!
My grandson has been saying he wants Silly Putty – it would be fun to use Borax to make it with his.
I love Borax!
And I’ve made silly putty and use it in my washing machine
I would use it to make my own laundry detergent
I read that it works great at removing mold and mildew from the window sills. I would use it for that.
Is it 1 TSP or TBSP of water? Your recipe says TBSP and your directions say TBSP. Thanks!
directions say TSP
It is Tablespoon. I have started spelling it out, because it confuses me so much! I hope that clears it up.
Wow – that was disappointing. Followed the ingredients and directions (went with 1 tsp of water not 1 tbsp). But the texture is not like silly putty at all. I thought it was a great idea mixing it in the bag, but it turned out not to be the best. After rolling, squishing and mixing for a few minutes you are left with a very rubbery ball of glue and a bunch of colored water that will not mix in. We rinsed it and dried it, but it isn’t very pliable at all. Once you rip it apart (does not stretch) it is very hard to work it back together. Will try again with another recipe.
I am sorry this did not work for you. If you try one tablespoon of water, you may have better results. Not all of the water will mix in with the glue and it is ok. You may want to try using a different glue. We had really great results with Elmer’s glue.
HI…. FYI: your measurements are not all corrected, your LISTING of ingredients vs INSTRUCTIONS still have TBLS vs Teaspoon incorrect for the water.
We just made it at Boy Scouts and this is how I made it:
First, I dissolved 1 Tablespoon of Borax in 1 cup of warm water
Then I had the boys add
1 tablespoon Elmers glue and 1 tablespoon of water in zip lock bag and had them zip and mix (Equal parts)
Add few drops of food coloring (optional)
We then added 1 teaspoon of the Borax water solution to their bags.
For some kids, that was perfect.
For other kids, their mixture was too sticky so I took their mix out of the bag and with their mix in my hand, I dipped it into the water/Borax solution, then put it back in the bag, mixed and everyone’s was PERFECT!
It gets better and better the more the kids play with it!
We put everyone’s Silly Putty in the Plastic Easter eggs. Ours is 4 days old and still perfect. Bottom line….Silly Putty is FUN!
This was great idea and the only place I could find measurements for individual silly putty mixes. Thank you for a GREAT idea and fun project!
Too much borax makes it stiff. I had that problem the first time too. I added 1 teaspoon of the borax/water solution and added more if it was too sticky.
You do know that girls like squishy stuff too, right?
Yes. During this time I was having a difficult time finding crafts geared towards boys. I have boys and a girl. Crafts for girls are easy to find.
like your recipe thanks /yes send me a coupon
I used to love silly putty when I was a kid, what fun. and making your own sounds even better!