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June 15, 2012 | Crystal Paine

4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun: Homemade Flubber (Day 1)

We kicked off our 4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun series by making Homemade Flubber.

In case you’re scratching your head wondering what I’m talking about, “Flubber” originated from Disney’s 1961 film The Absent-Minded Professor (I’m not sure that I’ve even seen the movie, but I’m familiar with the storyline!).

My children were totally stoked about this project. Getting to play with slimy goop? Yes, please, bring it on!

They were highly motivated to finish their chores and to-do lists for the day in order to get make Flubber (or “icky” as Silas dubbed it!) And they all loved making it.

Our first batch flopped because we didn’t completely dissolve the glue in the water. But we still got some slimy goo from it that children thought was very cool.

The second batch actually looked like it was supposed to. And everyone had a blast playing with it.

The only problem was that 3-year-old Silas got a little “into “it and started flinging it on the wall and letting it drip all down the front of him.

So my advice to you moms is: if you decide to try this recipe, do it during naptime or when your really young ones are otherwise occupied. Or, let them play with it outside in old play clothes and then let everyone have a water fight afterward to clean themselves off. 🙂

Homemade Flubber Recipe

  • 1 1/2 cups warm water, divided
  • 1 teaspoon Borax
  • 1 4-oz. bottle glue (we used both Elmer’s glue and cheap off-brand glue and both seemed to work well)
  • food coloring

Dissolve Borax in 1/2 cup warm water. Set bowl aside.

In another bowl, pour the entire bottle of glue into one cup warm water, add a few drops of food color, and completely mix together. Mixture should resemble a thin paste with no globs of glue still intact.

Pour Borax mixture over glue mixture. Start stirring and it should immediately begin turning into a slimy mixture.

Once it’s mixed together and resembles slime, allow your children to have fun with it — preferably outside or at the kitchen table.

Store leftover Flubber in a ziptop bag for up to two weeks.

Note: Adult supervision at all times is a must with this recipe as Borax is toxic. Check the comments for other non-toxic alternatives.

Original recipe from Whitfield’s Home in the Country.

Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.

71 Comments
June 18, 2012 | Crystal Paine

4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun: Edible Peanut Butter Playdough (Day 2)

Kathrynne woke up with a fever today. So much of my day was spent caring for her — and much of the other normal stuff just got shelved. By late afternoon, she was finally feeling a little better, so Kaitlynn and Silas and I let her rest while we stole away to the kitchen to make peanut butter playdough.

Kaitlynn and Silas had a lot of fun helping me mix up the playdough and then I gave them each a ball of dough and a few toppings on a plate plus a cookie sheet and let them just have at it. They had a lot of fun making their own creations and pictures with the playdough on the cookie sheet.

And then they had even more fun bringing it to show Kathrynne and then all eating their creations together.

The whole project was simple, very inexpensive (we just used ingredients we already had on hand!), and easy to clean up. After the Flubber mess, the fact that I didn’t have to spend quite a bit of time scrubbing goo off the walls and the kitchen table after we were finished was a bit of a welcome relief. 🙂


Peanut Butter Playdough Recipe

  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter
  • 1/2 to 1 cup powdered milk
  • Toppings to decorate playdough: chocolate chips, jelly beans, M&M’s, sunflower seeds, raisins, chopped fruit, shredded coconut, etc.

Mix first three ingredients together until nice dough is formed (add more powdered milk if the dough is too sticky). Let children form into shapes and decorate.

If you don’t have powdered milk, here are two other recipes I found:

Peanut Butter Playdough #2: 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of peanut butter, + 1 tablespoon of honey

Peanut Butter Playdough #3:  4 cups of peanut butter, 1 cup of light corn syrup, + 2 cups of powdered sugar

Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.

Note: There seems to be some confusion as to what to link up with this series. Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.

48 Comments
June 19, 2012 | Crystal Paine

4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun: Painting With Water + Read Alouds (Day 3)


Today didn’t go as I’d planned, but it was a good day, nonetheless. Kathrynne was still quite sick today, so I spent a lot of time caring for her and we finally ended up taking her in to the doctor. Come to find out, she has a really bad double ear infection. Poor girl!

At any rate, we didn’t get around to doing the Bubble Painting I’d planned that we’d do today. But we still had some frugal fun — or at least lots of special time together.

We did some paint with water books (I picked these up on a Buy One, Get One Half Off special from Light of Faith at our homeschool conference), Silas got to cut his pages (using scissors is a big privilege for him now and something he can only do with Mommy around after he cut his hair a few weeks ago!), and Kaitlynn made and painted a paper basket.

We then spent a long time cuddled up on the couch together reading a big stack of books with Kathrynne. We’ve been keeping our library hopping with all the books we’ve been checking out from them recently  — especially now that Kathrynne is reading so voraciously!

Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.

Note: There seems to be some confusion as to what to link up with this series. Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.

62 Comments
June 20, 2012 | Crystal Paine

4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun: Bubble Painting (Day 4)

Kathrynne was feeling better today and we were able to try the Bubble Painting.

I didn’t think to look up multiple recipes for Bubble Painting on the internet, but I just went off of this pin on Pinterest. Afterward, I did look up recipes online and realized that this probably would have worked better had we used actual paint mixed in with the bubbles instead of food coloring.

But hey, we had a lot of fun making abstract paintings and we used stuff we already had on hand, so it wasn’t a failed experiment by any means. 🙂


Silas didn’t enjoy painting as much as the girls and quickly resorted to building with Legos instead.

Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.

Note: Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.

33 Comments
June 21, 2012 | Crystal Paine

4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun: Marshmallow & Toothpick Structures (Day 5)

I was inspired by Angie from Creating Our Home for today’s project! And I’m so glad we tried this because it was a huge hit — especially with Kathrynne.

All you need is a bag of mini marshmallows and some toothpicks. You might have both on hand, or you could pick them up at the Dollar Store or Walmart very inexpensively.

Show your children how to connect the toothpicks and marshmallows together to make structures and then let them be creative and see what they come up with!

I gave each of the children their own bowls of marshmallows to make it easier (and to prevent any possible arguments over who gets the marshmallow bag!).

And don’t forget to have a snack of marshmallows at the end!

I think Silas enjoyed the snacking on marshmallows at the end best of all! 🙂

Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.

Note: Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.

54 Comments
June 22, 2012 | Crystal Paine

4 Weeks of Frugal Family Fun: Green Smoothies, Sidewalk Chalk, Snow Treasure, and a game of Old Maid (Day 6)

We had a very laid back Friday full of lots of frugal family fun. Here’s a little peek into our day:

We made our favorite Green Monster Smoothies.

So good and refreshing — especially after my daily run!

We went outside and played with sidewalk chalk on the deck.

We were hoping that maybe we could make the Fizzy Sidewalk Chalk by spraying the drawings with vinegar as outlined here. But apparently it only fizzes if you make Homemade Sidewalk Chalk Paint with baking soda. So we’ll have to try that idea again sometime soon!

But everyone had fun drawing and spraying, regardless!

While the children played, I read a few chapters of one of our current read-alouds — Snow Treasure. We are loving this book, by the way!

After playing outside, we came in and Kathrynne and I played a rousing game of Old Maid together.

Did you do something fun and frugal as a family today? If you blogged about it, I’d love for you to leave a link to your blog post below. Or, you can just tell us what you did in the comments.

Note: Since the purpose of this series is to encourage you to be intentional about fun in your home this summer, please only link up posts showing pictures/sharing details of fun things you did as a family today (or within the last few days). Posts that do not adhere to these guidelines will be deleted in order to make it fair for those who are putting forth a lot of effort to participate in this challenge.

61 Comments