Valentine’s Day Slime Favours

2 / 5 / 139 / 22 / 13

Okay, so not the most traditional of Valentine’s Day treats, but when you ask a two year old what she wants to give her friends for Valentine’s, you have to be open to the suggestions. And those just happen to be heart wands and sparkly slime this time around.

Luckily, fun-to-play-with slime is a cinch to make and requires ingredients we always have around the house. Plus, we’re slime experts after whipping up 50+ slime treats this past Halloween.

Detailed instructions can be found here, but basically all you have to do is mix the glue, glitter, food colouring, and some of the water together…

And the other bit of water with the Borax separately.

Then pour the two mixtures together, knead it together a bit…

And watch oozy gooey slime form. It’s honestly so easy that Miss G can do almost everything (save the measuring) on her own.

For packaging, we like using these 125 ml mason jars because they’re the perfect size and can be reused for something else afterwards (plus they’re pretty cute!)

Filling the jars with was Miss G’s favourite part of the process this time around, especially when she discovered that she could create all kinds of silly noises by forcing the slime down into the jars.

Though she’d asked for red slime with red sparkles, this is what our finished product looks like {even after using a half a bottle of liquid food colouring}. Luckily the pink and red combo is perfect for the occasion and Miss G was pleased with how it turned out.

For the tops, we created simple paper circle inserts that include a little ‘Valen-slime’ saying and a sparkly red heart. Here are a few close ups…

‘Be mine, Valen-slime.’

‘Be my Valen-slime.’

‘Will you be my Valen-slime?’

Surely we’re the first ever people to give out slime on a holiday centred around love and friendship, but who wants to be run of the mill anyways?

Sparkly Slime

(This is essentially the exact same recipe we used last time, but in a bigger batch. This recipe yields 24 – 26 mason jars of slime – perfect for a class of kids – or in our case, 12 mason jars and a big batch to use for sensory play.)

3 cups of white glue (approximately 6 regular sized bottles)
2 1/4 cups of hot water
1 1/2 teaspoon of fine glitter
food colouring (as much as desired)

1 1/2 cups of hot water
3 1/2 teaspoons of Borax

Combine the first set of ingredients until the mixture is smooth and free of glue globs.

In a separate measuring cup or bowl, combine the second set of ingredients until the Borax is dissolved into the water.

Slowly pour the Borax mixture into the glue mixture, stirring as you pour. When the slime comes together in a large mass, knead it for a minutes until if is soft and stretchy.

Package in pretty little mason jars and gift to friends.

*While clear glue with work just fine for this recipe, environmentally-friendly versions will not. Trust me. We’ve tried it. TWICE.*

*If your finished slime seems too ‘thick’ and not soft/stretchy/runny enough, simply add some really hot water to it, knead it in vigarously, and let it sit a few minutes. The texture will improve greatly.*

*Borax is a laundry booster and can be found near the bleach/stain remover/oxy clean in most big stores.*

*If you wonder about the safety of using Borax with children (as I did) this post is extremely helpful.*

♥

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{Heart-Shaped} Wholewheat Cheese Crackers

2 / 1 / 139 / 22 / 13

Today Gracen and I whipped up a batch of what is easily her most loved treat in the entire world – our homemade version of the classic ‘fishy crackers’. Though I’ve shared this recipe before, I thought I’d share it again as we did things a teeny bit differently this time around… Plus, this heart-shaped version would make a perfect treat for Valentine’s Day.

First off, our ingredients… We used the usuals, but tried using a coarse stone ground wholewheat flour, replaced the cheddar with Colby and fresh parmesan, and added some basil into our spice mix.

Then my little helper dumped everything together.

Instead of mixing everything in our mixer like we have in the past, this time we did it in the food processor I got for my birthday. It definitely allowed the dough to come together more easily, and as guessed, adding a touch of water wasn’t necessary in the food processor.

With all of the ingredients well mixed, we dumped everything out onto our workspace and used our hands to form it into a large mass.

Then we patted it down by hand, covered it with parchment, and rolled it out nice and thin.

It must be all the talk about Valentine’s Day festivities, because Grae chose a heart-shaped cookie cutter this time around.

We cut out endless hearts, carefully lifted them with the flat edge of a butter knife, and transferred them onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.

We popped them in the oven, and in no time, we had crispy, tender crackers that are full of flavour and free of preservatives.

See our original recipe here.

Wholewheat Cheese Crakers

2 cups of Colby cheese
1 cup of fresh parmesan
8 tablespoons of olive oil
1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon of cayenne paper
1/8 teaspoon of dried basil
1/8 teaspoon of sea salt (optional)

1/4 cup of warm water (if mixing by hand or using an electric mixer – not necessary in a food processor)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine all ingredients and gently form dough into a ball.

Sandwich dough between two layers of parchment and roll it out to 1/8 of an inch thick. Form shapes with a cookie cutter, dipping it in flour from time to time if needed. Gently transfer crackers to a parchment-lined baking sheet using the flat edge of a butter knife if needed.

Bake the crackers for 12 to 15 minutes, or until they are just barely browned at the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Enjoy!

♥

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Sparkly Heart-Shaped Wands

1 / 31 / 131 / 25 / 14

In addition to our annual Valentine’s Day tea, Gracen and I have a couple of other Valentine’s parties and classes to attend this year. And since we don’t do the whole candy thing just yet, it means getting a little bit more creative with the ‘treats’ she hands out. When I asked her what she’d like to give her friends, she responded with Valentine’s slime (thanks I’m sure to our Halloween version for her ballet class friends) and heart wands (thanks to a Kiwi Crate package we received from our most recent PBK story time). And because both take a little bit of prep work, we started early… More time left over to figure out what we’ll bring for the 30+ kiddos in her Strong Start class, right?

These little wands are beautiful and easy to make, and although some may think they’re a little ‘girly’, we believe that hearts and magic are for everyone. ☺

Here are the materials we used for the project… Wooden dowels, adhesive glitter foam sheets, acrylic paint, a paint brush, and some ribbon. The best part is that we picked up all of these things at our local dollar store, so not only were they inexpensive, but we only had to make one stop – always nice with a toddler in tow.

First off, we started the project by painting our wooden dowels. Miss G does not always enjoy having her hands covered in paint, so we attached clothespins to the ends of the dowels so she could rotate them as she painted without painting her fingers. When she declared a dowel done, I went over the stick with a couple of quick strokes in order to smooth out the globs.

Then, because the tips were not painted where the clothespins were, I was able to stick the dowels into chunks of {gingerbread} play dough to dry upright.

A couple of days later, when our paint was good and dry (it actually only takes about an hour), we came back to our project. We started by drawing a heart shape onto a piece of cardboard and cutting it out to use as a tracer.

Next, using our newly-made tracer, we traced hearts onto the backs of our foam sheets. Gracen was happy to do the first few, and let me do the others when it came to this job.

With some strategic placement, we were able to fit 4 hearts onto each of our foam sheets, but of course it depends on the size of your tracer and the size of your foam sheets.

Next, we cut out the hearts.

Now to actually assemble a wand, you need two foam hearts, a wooden dowel, and a cute little helper.

This right here was Grae’s favourite part of the whole project… Peeling the backings off of the hearts!

With one heart shaped peeled, we placed the sticky side up on our work surface and placed the unfinished end of our dowel in the centre of the heart, up maybe an inch or inch and a half from the bottom.

Then Grae peeled the backing off of another heart, and we carefully placed it on top of the dowel, making sure to line up the hearts as closely as we could.