the boys and I worked together to make a gift for some of their little friends. we made silly putty and then bagged up a few plastic critters and I printed out instructions for an easy ‘hide and seek’ game…hide the plastic things in the putty for someone else to find (it passes as a game in our house despite its simplicity).
the silly putty went into—what else!—jars! (between snow-globe making and the mason jar sewing kits I’ve become something of a jar enthusiast. I can hardly bear to recycle them anymore because all I see is potential.)
as a result of this gift I’ve made a lot of silly putty. it is so simple. basically, just mix together equal parts liquid starch and regular glue. now, after making four different batches I have learned a few things that might be helpful about how exactly to mix it. for starters, I pour the glue in first and then have a big serving fork ready to sort stir while I pour in the liquid starch second. the two bind together really quickly but they don’t completely cohere. so, I mix them together with my hands as much as I can (I find that the starch seems to have a harder time mixing). after I mix with my hands it basically looks like this:
that’s when I let it sit for 30-40 minutes. then, I mix it with my hands again and if it it coming together a bit I try to stretch it out as I’m doing below:
if it’s not able to pull into a thin membrane like this, let it sit for longer. I stretch the whole batch out and that seems to help it really come together so that when it sits it becomes one big glump. it smells a bit but it really works. I have encouraged everyone to wash their hands after playing with it because it leaves a starch residue on hands and fingers. but if you can get past that, it fits the category of fun, cheap and easy.
Leave a Reply