We're All Set to Make a Mess

Years ago, the library had a selection of books with instructions for making different doughs and clays and goods and slimes. I kept checking them out over and over, always meaning to buy our own copies.

Now there's Pinterest and I don't need the library or a book. A quick scroll through my Pinterest or Facebook feed will show me the possibilities of exploding ivory soap in the microwave and then using the soap to make ghost mud or mixing white glue and borax to make silly putty or the million and one other things that I've pinned to try when my boys are bored.




I've got a whole board of things pinned. These days, my problem is pulling together the supplies. So many of these projects claim that you can do them with what you've already got in the kitchen, but if I use up all of my dish soap or corn starch making fun projects, I'm going to paint myself into a corner and not have what I need for actually making dinner or washing the dishes. It's a twenty mile drive to Walmart, so I try not to do that.

I bought corn starch and baking soda from the bulk bins at Winco, which left me with leaking platic bags of I'm-not-sure-what-this-is.  Not the best plan. A couple of weeks ago, I finally pulled out some big mason jars and filled them with baking soda and borax and corn starch and put actual labels on them.  Now it's all here when we need it and I don't have to worry about pilfering the kitchen or identifying mystery bags. I also had a big bottle of cheap dish washing detergent, but I used that up when we ran out of the stuff that's actually suitable for washing dishes.