How to Make Clear Slime

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

Slime is a wonderful sensory experience, and I'm thrilled that so many young people are embracing the joy of exploring interesting textures (there are no interesting textures on their phones!). Making slime is also a terrifically educational activity, with problem-solving and reading and following instructions combined with quite a lot of chemistry and not a little bit of physics, as well.

To make clear slime, I consulted my own resident slime-making expert. She's put in hundreds of hours making slime, and is here with us today to teach you how to make clear slime, the Holy Grail of slimes. Syd's clear slime isn't your ordinary, everyday "clear" slime that's actually milky or white, she tells me. When she says that her slime is clear, she means it is CLEAR.

As in crystal!

So read along as the world's slimiest kid takes the task of making clear slime and breaks it down so simply that even the average non-slimer adult can follow it.

To make clear slime, you will need:

• Clear Elmer's glue. I used to be able to buy this by the gallon, but lately, I've only found smaller containers for sale. I sure hope the gallon size comes back soon!
• Hot water. The water should be hot, but still, a comfortable temperature for a kid to touch. For mobile slime-making (yes, this is something that she does...), Syd boils a kettle of water, then pours it into a thermos for transport.
• Contact lens solution. Buy the cheapest on the market for this project, making sure that it contains boric acid.
• Baking soda.
• Two mixing bowls, a spoon, and a resealable container for storage.

1. Pour 1/2 cup of clear glue into a bowl. Remember that kids do this, so don't worry about trying to make your measurements too fussy. The important thing is that you're using CLEAR glue, not white. You can use white glue for other slimes, but then your slime won't be clear!

2. Mix in 1 tbsp of saline solution. This is also known as contact lens solution.

So here's a thing that I want to tell you about: we're going to talk about borax. When slime-making first got big, there was an actual backlash as people started FREAKING OUT that their kids were touching borax. As alternatives, people started posting slime recipes that don't use borax. Some of those recipes are great, some are not, and lots of them use contact lens solution as their substitute for borax.

Y'all, contact lens solution and borax both come from boron! They're pretty much the same, just that one is in powder form and the other is dissolved into a solution.

Not that I think that you should even force your kids to avoid borax, because I don't think that at all. Heck, my kids were making laundry soap from borax with their bare hands at the age of eight (they probably should have been wearing gloves, but still). Borax is FINE, Friends. Sure, if they bathe in it every day for a month it'll irritate their skin, but so will pool water.

3. In a separate container, dissolve 1/2 tsp of baking soda into 1/2 cup of hot water. Stir it well and make sure that it dissolves completely.

4. Once the baking soda is completely dissolved, pour it into the glue mixture. Try to pour it over the entire surface of the glue mixture.

5. Wait approximately a minute, then stir. Knead if necessary. 

At first, the mixture will be a goopy mess but continue stirring and you'll be able to see when the slime activates because it will start to ball up. It will still be sticky when you start to knead it but keep working it and it will become ever more elastic and non-Newtonian until it's the perfect slime.

You will have some of your baking soda and water solution left in the bowl, and that's perfectly fine and normal.

One thing that your slime will not start out as is perfectly clear, for the simple fact that you just kneaded a ton of bubbles into it.

If you really want perfectly clear slime, then pop it into an airtight container and let it sit for a day. The next day, it will be clear!

Note that as soon as you start playing with it, though, you'll start kneading bubbles back into it. This picture is of the clear slime that Syd has played with for a while, and you can see the bubbles:

Pro Tip: Syd stores her slime in small plastic deli containers to keep it fresh--and off of my carpet! She tells me that this particular slime will lose its bounce after several days, but it's easy to reactivate it. To reactive this clear slime, dissolve 1/2 tsp baking soda in 1/2 cup hot water. Pour the older slime mixture into this solution, stir, and then knead it when it becomes firmer. Keep the reactivated slime and discard the excess water.

How to Sew a Quilted Rainbow Mug Rug

I have been obsessed with sewing triangles lately, mainly because this WIP rainbow Sierpinski's Triangle quilt has taken over my thoughts and dreams:

The sewing on it has to be really precise so that all the nice points are nice and pointy and match all the other nice points, so first I practiced by sewing lots of other triangle projects.

And in the process, I came up with this quilted rainbow mug rug that I'm super into!

It's VERY good practice for the precise cutting and sewing required with triangle pieces, but at the same time it's a reasonably quick project to get through. It's apparently a fun project, as well, because as soon as I made one mug rug, I immediately pieced a second one.. and then a third... and then a fourth... and now I have a full rainbow set of six happily at my disposal.

Here's how YOU can sew a fun rainbow of your own!

You will need:

•  60-degree triangle ruler
• six different fabric prints in rainbow colors
• cotton batting
• cotton broadcloth in a single rainbow color
• thread that matches the broadcloth
• universal sewing needle. This one is a good size to handle the 2-5 layers of cotton that it will be sewing.
• small iron (optional). A regular iron can handle this project, but I LOVE this particular iron for ironing seams flat as I sew.

1. Measure and cut the triangles. For this mug rug, I think that 2.5" triangles result in the perfect finished size. Your 60-degree triangle ruler has printed lines that guide you to making the correct cuts, essentially having you cut a 3" triangle that you'll sew with a .25" seam allowance. For triangle sewing, your seam allowances have to be really, really precise (the fact that I keep emphasizing this means, I fear, that my sewing is not normally so precise...), so this is also a good time to get out your ruler and make sure you know what an exact .25" seam allowance looks like on your sewing machine.

All my photos are terrible because it's raining and it's going to rain forever and if I wait until I've got natural light to photograph things so they don't look terrible I, too, will wait forever.

After my triangles are cut out, I like to play with arranging them to make sure I like the aesthetic:

2. Piece the triangles into two rows of three. Piecing together three triangles, top points aligned, will give you a perfect 180-degree straight line. Your triangle ruler will have already had you cut each triangle with one notched point, and that notched point is the easiest place to align the triangles. Carefully align two triangles, right sides together, and sew them with a .25" seam allowance. Iron that seam open.

I had to practice and practice and practice before I could consistently sew this third triangle just right. I ripped out SO MANY seams, and walked away from my sewing machine to go do something else SO MANY times. 

So that you don't have to suffer the way that I did, here's how I double- and triple-check that I've got this last triangle lined up correctly:

See the triangle points that stick out because you ironed the seam open? Those points help you match the pieces! If you've matched the notched piece at the top and you match this triangle point at the bottom, your piece is perfectly aligned and you can sew it with a perfect .25" seam allowance.

Iron the seam open, and here's what your three triangles should look like on the back:

Here's what they look like from the front:

I took the photo at a weird angle, because taking it from directly above would have entirely blocked the small amount of light present in my study on this gloomy day, but if you look carefully, you should see that the middle triangle's bottom point does not extend all the way to the bottom of the piece. There should be .25" between the bottom point and the bottom raw edge.

If there's not, rip it out and try again. Lord knows I've done that many a hundred times in the past few weeks!

3. Piece the two rows together. Lining up the points when you piece the two rows together is also a little tricky, and also had me ripping out seams multiple times before I finally figured out a couple of tricks. First, check out the picture below:

In this picture (which is actually of my Sierpinski's triangle quilt in progress, mwa-ha-ha!), see how the back of the black triangle has a top point that meets the two blue pieces? Ignore the seam that goes off to the right to make a point, and just look at where the three quilt pieces meet at one point.

That point is also the triangle's point on the front side! If you can pin that point straight through to the point on the other piece of fabric, your points will match.

It also gives you a visual guide when you're sewing. Make sure you stitch directly over that point, and your triangle will look nice and pointy from the front:

Look at how tidy and pointy and almost exactly perfect the finished hexagon is!

4. Quilt the hexagon to the batting. For these mug rugs, I've decided that I prefer quilting the hexagon to the batting only, and adding the backing fabric later. So cut out a piece of batting that's a little bigger than your hexagon--

And then quilt the hexagon to it by stitching in the ditch with white thread.

5. NOW you can sew the backing fabric to your quilt! The backing is going to serve not just as a backing, but also as the back-to-front quilt binding for your mug rug. To that end, pin your quilt to the backing fabric, then enlarge the hexagon an extra .75" on all sides. A clear ruler makes this super easy:

Cut out the backing fabric.

Crease and pin the binding. Here's where that mini iron really comes in handy! For each side, fold the extra fabric in half and iron to crease, then fold it over again and pin it to the quilt. Here's a really great tutorial with clear illustrations for exactly how to do this back-to-front blanket binding.

And here's what it looks like in progress!

Now all you have to do is sew the binding to the quilt, using matching thread. It doesn't really matter if you use a straight or zigzag stitch, and I experimented with both, but eventually decided that I prefer the look of zigzag for my mug rugs:

And so that's what I did!

I like how clean the back looks, since it doesn't have any of the quilting:

And as you can see, it's the perfect size for a coffee mug!

I enjoy making these so much that I made a listing in my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop so that I can keep on making them. 

You can order your own quilted mug rug in sets from one to six, with the backing fabric color of your choosing. I choose your print fabrics, but they'll always be a six-color rainbow:

Trust me when I tell you that a rainbow on your coffee table is a very cheery thing to have!

Six Months Ago: A DIY Binomial Cube/Trinomial Cube Manipulative

One Year Ago: 20+ Things to Do with Apples

Two Years Ago: Movement and Grace: Scenes from the Ballet Classroom

Three Years Ago: Montessori Pink Tower Extensions for a Sixth Grader

Four Years Ago: American Revolution Road Trip: Bay Front Park, Maryland

Five Years Ago: Hawaii with Kids: Luaus and Leis on the Big Island

Six Years Ago: La Maestra

Seven Years Ago: Trick-or-Treating with IU Basketball: Haunted Hoops!

Eight Years Ago: To Build a Fire: Junior Version

Nine Years Ago: Halloweening

Ten Years Ago: Willow Bakes Amelia Bedelia's Cake

Eleven Years Ago: One Deer Down, One Clown to Go

Twelve Years Ago: Illness and Ornaments and Perhaps a Psychotic Break

Halloween 2020: The Global Pandemic/Pre-Presidential Election Edition

 The kids didn't even make costumes this year, and it's nevertheless our scariest Halloween yet!

This afternoon, as I drove by the Planned Parenthood with my arm out the window flipping off the abortion protestors, some guy yelled at me, "Trump is still #1! You have a nice day, Ma'am!" 

I don't totally know what to do with that. Like, my side of the conversation was very much a non-verbal, "I don't like how you want to strip away my body autonomy," and his was all, "I love stripping away your body autonomy! Also I love racist, homophobic, nepotistic sex criminal tax evaders! But at least I'm not going to call you a bitch!"

I guess he's not spending his evenings low-key planning the overland route he'll take with his daughters to Canada while evading the hunter squads that want to traffic them into government-mandated reproductive slavery because an "originalist" version of the Constitution basically has women listed as property...

Or how about another sign I saw, held by a woman protesting... a reasonable response to a global pandemic, I guess?... that proclaimed that she chose not to live in fear.

MUST BE NICE.

I, myself, am pretty busy living in all the fear over here, but in my free time I've been working my butt off trying to give my teenagers some magical memories of their second-favorite holiday even though they can't do any of their favorite things:

Such as trick-or-treating.

Trick-or-treating with friends.

Trick-or-treating from the local fraternities and sororities.

Trick-or-treating at the nearby state park.

Trick-or-treating in our favorite neighborhood with all the epic decorations.

There's already so little time left for them to enjoy the kid-version of Halloween, and now they've lost one more year.

I'm trying to make it up to them with at-home versions of sugar. Every Halloween treat they've ever wanted to try making? We have made it this month.

Check out our caramel apples that almost worked!

I'm a little bummed because I am all the time bragging how Serious Eats never does me wrong and their recipes always work for me and they're impossible for me to mess up, and yet this Serious Eats caramel apple recipe did NOT teach me how to successfully make caramel apples:

We used the candy thermometer and everything, and yet all the toppings and most of the caramel ended up slumping off of our apples. Fortunately, we're not a very fastidious people so we just spooned it all back on and ate them anyway:

They were delicious!

Will's Halloween foodie dream wasn't particularly spooky, but it was something that I know she's long wanted to do with the apples that we get from our local orchard:

Made-from-scratch apple pie, homemade pie crust and all!

I don't particularly like pie--I mean, I guess I technically like anything that has that much sugar in it, but I could tell you off the top of my head probably forty sweet treats I'd rather have--but even I thought that this pie was astoundingly tasty. And clearly the rest of the family agreed!

I kind of want to try hand pies next, but after making our traditional apple cake and several pints of applesauce, we're almost out of apples!

Here's another new recipe that we tried this year:

The kids are exceedingly fond of cinnamon rolls, and cinnamon rolls in the shape of bloody guts did not gross them out at all:

If anything, I think that baking them like this made them even more soft and tender, and the cranberry chutney that I mixed into the cream cheese frosting added not just those disgusting blobs the exact color of clotted blood, but also a lovely tang!

Here's one food tradition that I gave up on this year:

Yep, everybody's carving pumpkins and I'm not forcing any of them to save me the seeds in a separate bowl for roasting. I'm the only one who ever eats them until I start sneaking them into everyone else's food a few weeks later, but I just cleaned out the pantry and found a ton of nuts, so I've got enough going on sneaking nuts into everyone's food for the foreseeable future without adding a bunch of pumpkin seeds to the mix.

Will's pumpkin turned out adorable, but Syd's is inexplicably terrifying this year. It watches me through the family room window, and every day its smile collapses a little more into a grimace of pained loathing.

This is also only food-adjacent, but Will and I are smack in the middle of making ourselves a whole apothecary of spooky potion bottles:

I've only got a few finished out of the ton that we have planned, but they're seriously awesome and the best way to use up old bottles!

Okay, back to the food!

Every year, Matt's mummy meatloaf is more terrifying than the year before. This year, the kids specifically protested the pecan rotten teeth--see why I have to sneak nuts into their diet?--but I thought it was brilliant. That's a dozen fewer pecan halves that I'm going to have to grind up, stir into muffins, and then insist that I didn't!

We've got scary movies planned for every night this week (along with binging Supernatural, because my other hobby is attempting to get the kids hooked on my favorite weird TV shows so I have someone to watch them with), and on Saturday after dark, I'm going to lock the kids in their room and then hide candy all over the house. I'll turn off all the lights, give them each a flashlight, and release them to hunt for their Halloween candy.

At least the evening sugar high will be the same as every year!