How to Make Homemade Silly Putty with Glue and Liquid Starch
This stuff stretches and oozes. If you give it a sharp pull, it will break. But if you hold it up, it oozes down.
It’s thicker than slime and perfect for making prints with objects.
We had fun mixing up several different colors of silly putty and making prints with toy cars, dinosaurs, keys, and even Legos! Here’s how to make it.
To make silly putty you will need:
- Elmer’s Glue All (not school glue!)
- Liquid Starch
- Food Coloring
Mix 1/4 cup glue with a few drops of food coloring. We found that adding more than 5-6 drops creates silly putty that stains!
Once it’s well mixed, stir in most of 1/4 cup of liquid starch. When you have stirred as much as you can, it will look like this. Remove it from the bowl and mix with your hands.
Squish and squish until it’s well mixed. It will be stringy at first, but keep going! You can rinse it under a little running water to get rid of the gooey feel.
When it’s finished, it should look like the picture below.
If your slime is too sticky and goopy, mix in more starch. Jonathan’s silly putty especially was too sticky. Every time he played with it, it got all over him. We thought it was just him being 3, but then I “fixed” his silly putty with more starch. No more sticky mess! I simply dipped the whole blob in some starch and then kept squishing.
By far, the boys’ favorite thing to do with their silly putty has been to make imprints with different objects.
Here’s a video of the silly putty in action:
3 Comments
Yolanda Jan 24, 2015
Do you know what is in Elmers glue? I live in the UK.
Sarah Jan 29, 2015
Elmer's Glue is PVA glue, but I'm not sure what makes their Glue All version stronger. Equal parts of PVA glue and liquid starch will create slime. If you add more starch you can thicken it, but I'm not sure if it will be as stiff as this silly putty. Sorry - I wish I knew more about what is available in the UK!
Karyn Feb 1, 2015
Hi Yolanda, You can buy Elmers Glue in the UK on Amazon.co.uk - it's very reasonably priced
Rachel Feb 23, 2015
We tried this twice and it worked really well, but the first batch dried out when left out overnight. So the next time I put it in a ziploc baggy and it still got too stiff to be squishy anymore. How do you keep yours?
Sarah Feb 24, 2015
We definitely store it in a ziplock bag - otherwise it will dry out. I should have written that in the post! Sorry!
Renata Minoldo May 22, 2017
Hi! thanks for your amazing recipes! Me and my kids would love to make some slime and also foam that hardens? Do you have any trick or extra ingredient to add to it maybe? or a completely different recipe? Thanks very much, I love your website!
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