Who else has a kid who’s dying to have a slime party? Hey, we get it! Our own kids’ obsession with slime seems to be here to stay. Forever. And surely we’re not the only ones with tubs of various types of goo piled high on our countertops.
We figure, if you can’t beat ’em… let them make lots of slime. And we’ve got lots of smart slime party tips, hacks and of course, slime recipes to help to host your own awesome slime party, whether for your kid’s next birthday, for a back-to-school celebration, for Halloween — or even to make a regular playdate or weekend sleepover something extra special.
Of course there’s one slime party essential you can’t get gooey without, and that’s our sponsor McCormick, whose McCormick Food Color and Egg Dye (along with their McCormick NEON! Food Color and Egg Dye) is a must-have for any slime-making session. In fact you’ll always find it in our own kitchen cabinets.
These fabulous, dependable colors turn plain old slime into bright and bold slime, with just a few drops.
So we’ve teamed up with McCormick to put together all these great slime party tips that we think you’ll love. Congrats on being the fun parent!
Set the mood with your invitations
When it comes to invitations, we think it’s best to include your party theme right on the invitation — after all, you’re dealing with slime here! You don’t want guests showing up in their fanciest frocks and new suede shoes, right?
You can make wardrobe suggestions (“play clothes welcome”) or even ask each kid to bring an apron.
If you’re really going all out, why not make the aprons the invitation?
Photo: Mike Fox via Unsplash
Kid-sized craft aprons are super affordable, especially in bulk. You can pin your invitation to the front or tuck it into the apron pocket.
Still, have a few back-ups at home just in case a kid or two forgets theirs at home. (Someone always will!)
Keeping things clean: Prevention > Cure
If we have one strong slime party tip, it’s that you should take advantage of great weather when you can, and throw your slime party outside.
We set up the tables for our own slime party on the back patio, resulting in the world’s easiest party clean-up. Yay for that! We can’t recommend it more.
Of course if you’re going to be indoors, just be sure the kids aren’t around any precious art or antique furniture. (Not that you’d do that.) Also, roll up any rugs — shag or otherwise. You can always throw floor mats or tarps down underneath the tables.
And tablecloths are a must! For our party, we picked a bright, fun plastic tablecloth (to keep our surfaces slime-free), then added fun plastic plates, bowls and spoons for mixing, plus little bowls or containers full of different slime fillers.
Setting up your slime stations for easy party flow
It’s great to lay out your party with a series of slime stations around to help guide the flow of the party. You can identify them with signs you make out of construction paper, or look for free printables around the web or on Etsy.
The way we see it, there are two ways to go, depending on how many guests you have and how much slime they’ll be making.
Set-up: The simple version
At our party, we kept it simple with just a pouring station and a filler station. Then, we dedicated all the main tables for slime mixing and adding colors (as shown above) in one place.
Set-up: The carnival version
Depending on how many kids are coming to your slime party, it might be best to set up different tables, carnival-style, each one for a different kind of slime you can make. (More on those recipes below.) This not only helps you guide the flow of the party, but helps kids easily see their overall options and be sure to make their way through. Because you know they’ll want to hit every one.
Bonus tip
You can also theme your tables to bring them to life and encourage more play opportunities — like putting out a little sand box with some cookie cutters for playing with kinetic sand slime, or making some creepy monster posters at the monster slime table.
But you know, don’t go too crazy and get too perfect with any of this. It is a slime party, after all!
Call in the cavalry! (A.K.A. grownups)
So let’s talk grownup to kid ratio, because this is important.
Of course it depends on the ages of your guests at your slime party, but we suggest having an adult (or a responsible teen) to help supervise the pouring and filling stations at bare minimum. You can always give kids a little more freedom when they get to the mixing tables.
But if you have younger kids, say 4-7, our slime party tip is to have one grownup per table to help them with the mix-ins, and to be sure that they’re not using half a bottle of food coloring for each batch of slime.
Psst…it also helps if you have a few helpful adults to help when it comes to clean-up. We’re not beyond bribes of homemade baked goods!
The basic ingredients you’ll need for making safe, Borax-free slime.
As much as we love the idea of following a specific recipe to make slime, we’ve found that kids have way more fun when you offer them the (safe, nontoxic) materials they need, and let them experiment to create their own. It also ups the educational element, which is something we love.
The basics:
– Glue (Clear and white)
– Activators (We avoid Borax, and choose safer options like liquid starch, psyllium husk, even cornstarch)
– Food Color (Like the Assorted Food Color and Egg Dyes from McCormick, of course!)
– Fillers (Like beads, glitter, colorful beads, monster eyes, sequins…you get it)
– Scents (Aromatherapy and essential oils work well, as do flavored extracts)
Tips for making fun slime recipe variations
As a general rule, we find that a 2:1 ratio of glue to activator (like starch) works pretty well. Then, add your food color — a drop or two can go a long way! — and any other fun stuff.
What we suggest is testing out a couple of our favorite Borax-free slime recipes before the party to find your kid’s own favorites, then gathering up the materials you’ll need for the guest to recreate them — or variations thereof — when it’s party time.
But really, there’s no hard and fast rule for a perfect slime recipe, so our tip is to let the kids experiment with ideas like these, lots of which you’ll find right on the McCormick site.
Glitter Slime Recipe
Our kids love making this glitter slime recipe that our associate editor Lexi created. It requires psyllium husk, our sponsor McCormick’s Food Color and Egg Dye, and — no surprise here — lots and lots and lots of glitter. (Another reason those tablecloths come in super handy for cleanup!)
Unicorn Poop Slime Recipe
Follow the instructions above, only stick with pink and purple. Something about glitter slime is just more fun when it uh, seems like it came out of a unicorn.
Neon Slime Recipe
If it’s all about color for your kids, you’ve got to do neon slime, right? McCormick’s NEON! Food Color and Egg Dye is just the thing, and mixing a few drops allow them to experiment with more crazy-bright colors.
DIY Kinetic Sand Slime Recipe
This DIY Kinetic Sand Slime Recipe found on McCormick’s site is as simple as adding some fine white craft sand to the three other basic ingredients, with cornstarch as the activator. Because it’s sand-like, you can also set up a small “sandbox” with some fun beachy cookie cutter shapes.
Cloud Slime Recipe
Our kids love the idea of cloud slime, which you can make by adding “Instant Snow” — packets easily found on Amazon or in craft stores. The resulting slime is a little like Kinectic Sand — super fluffy and really fun for little hands.
Mermaid Slime Recipe
It couldn’t be easier to make mermaid slime! Just start with your basic sparkle slime recipe then add food coloring in shades like violet, pink, green and sky blue, which are easy to achieve with different combos of McCormick Food Color and Egg Dye and NEON! Food Color and Egg Dye. (McCormick even has a handy food coloring mixing guide right on their site.) Just add glitter of your choice, and sequins of various sizes.
Kids can keep the colors separate, or mix and match and twist them together. Kids’ choice!
Monster Slime Recipe
Start with brightly colored slime, like the purple neon above, or a bright orange or green. Then, let the kids mix in their own googly eyes of different sizes which you can find at any craft store. Voila! Monster slime! See the results of green monster slime on this post.
Scented Slime Recipe
To make an easy safe, scented slime recipe for your slime party, just start with your basic slime and add your McCormick food color of choice plus a drop or two of any McCormick Extracts, which most of us have at home anyway.
Kids will probably love candy scents like lemon, vanilla, peppermint, and raspberry, but feel free to experiment. You can even use this handy chart to mix and match your own color-and-scent coordinated slimes!
DIY Slime Party Favors
The best part about a DIY Slime Party is that the party favors are built-in to the party activity! We sent kids home with their cleaned out bowls and spoons, along with all the slime they made. Here are a few ways to do that:
–Reusable to-go containers Grab small to-go containers at the grocery store, like you use for kids’ lunch boxes, and label each kid’s name with a permanent marker. Simply pack up in cute little paper bags and you’re set for goodie bags.
-Small jars and fun labels – Invest in a carton of affordable small plastic slime containers which are perfect for stashing a few favorites for each guest. If you want to go beyond a Sharpie name on the lid, how cute are these Kawaii Slime Jar labels? Just print them out on sticker paper, pop them over your slime jars, and you’ve got a very cool party favor to remind your guests about their awesome day.
–Plastic baggies, with a twist – We love this idea from Jamielyn at I Heart Naptime for a slime party favor: Send kids home with bags of blue sand slime (or any slime, really) complete with a little goldfish printable in a sealed plastic baggie. Or, buy little plastic fish figurines to use. Either way, it’s so clever, and bumps the craft-activity-as-goodie-bag-favor up a big notch!
After the slime party: Tips for easy clean-up
We couldn’t share all the tips you’ll need to throw a successful slime party without also mentioning… cleaning up. (Hey, we’re parents too.)
-Be sure to check our previous post filled with tips for how to get slime off clothing and carpets, just in case you need a little help in that department.
-To get food color off your hands, good ol’ soap and water should do the trick, or you can also give hand sanitizer a shot.
-As we’ve mentioned up top, prevention is worth many pounds of cure! Use those tablecloths to cover any surfaces, floor to table. Even chairs, if necessary. But if your countertops or tables do get a little messy, use whatever all-purpose cleaner with bleach you may already be using. It should do the trick.
Thanks so much to our sponsor McCormick, whose Food Color and Egg Dye, along with their NEON! Food Color and Egg Dye make DIY slime parties way more awesome. Let’s just say our kids had a BLAST at our own slime party, seen here. Can you tell?
All slime party photos © Cool Mom Picks
