Thrifty and Thriving has a tutorial for how to make a homemade marshmallow shooter kit complete with a printable label and instructions.
Fun & Frugal Gift Idea: Homemade Marshmallow Shooter Kit
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THANK YOU!! We are doing a homemade Christmas with the extended family and I have to make gifts for young boys 10 thru 13. This will be PERFECT… and very fun to watch them enjoy, as well. Thank you Thank you Thank you!
We’ve made these guns several times for our family for Christmas (BIG HIT!) and for birthdays. The last two years, we made enough for each kid at my sons b’day party. The main event for these 10 year old boys was the marshmallow fight. They took their guns home as a party favor.
Some tips if you want to do this: after experimenting with many styles of making these, the BEST and EASIEST and most effective shooting gun was a straight piece of PVC pipe with a connector on one end. It’s much easier for kids to use than the kind with the bends and handles, and doesn’t get marshmallows stuck in it. Plus, the smaller children can shoot farther with this type. It’s cheap to make and SO QUICK. The kids loved them. You can spray paint them if you want.
Also, dry out your marshmallows before you use them to keep them from get gunked up in the gun. We laid out several baking sheets of marshmallows (two or three bags) in the basement for a day or two. When they were hard, we bagged them in ziplocks and each boy got their own “ammo.”
HAVE FUN! 🙂
we absolutely love this for our boys ages 6 and 13. They are always going on youtube to make paper guns that look like this so they are going to love assembling these and shooting marshmellows around the house. I think the homemade unique gifts provide a meaningful christmas. We are also doing a design on a dime bedroom makeover for them for Christmas (since the youngest one no longer believes in santa) and we got them cool bean bag seats for video gaming. My fiance collects football cards and he framed a few in plaques he had laying around in the basement and we are going to hang them in their cool new football themed video game hang out.
We had a friend make three of these for my little boys for their birthdays and oh my! They absolutely loved them (she made me an extra one for self defense!) If you have any little boys on your shopping list, most definitely get them one of these! We haven’t had any safety issues with them, but if you are concerned they can also shoot them with the marshmallow lodged in the front of the gun.
I would also caution against this idea. PVC contains lead, which migrates to the surface. If the idea of lead in children’s toys bothers you, then you shouldn’t let your kids play with PVC pipes (or anything made of PVC or vinyl, for that matter).
Um, no actually PVC piping is used for water supply. I guarantee you that there is not lead in that pipe due to the ASTM standards that are strictly enforced by the government. If PVC pipe contained lead, do you think our building departments, architects, engineers, etc, would allow contractors to use this for our drinking water!!!????
We made these last summer. They made a HUGE mess (imagine sticky marshmallows in your grass), but fun for kids and adults!
While this may be an interesting idea for older children I would caution against its use with younger kids as the mini marshmallows are a compressible food that could easily be a choking hazard if sucked in rather than blown out and are the perfect size to occlude an airway.
I also posted this comment with thrifty and thriving.
We bought the non-homemade version for our nephews and learned that it is best to use frozen marshmallows so that they don’t make the inside all sticky (and subsequently stop working).
Thanks for the freezing idea. I asked for one for myself. I’m just a big kid. ;o)
One year my brother made marshmallow guns just like this for all of us–kids and adults! He painted them in camo like colors and I have to tell you we had an absolute blast! One of the best Christmas memories ever–it was a full blown marshmallow war! My only advice is to consider safety glasses….you would be shocked how much those little marshmallows can hurt when they hit you in the eye!