Make Your Own Slime

Here is a fun project for (outdoor) mixing fun. I have posted before that Kid Concoctions are my favorite recipes. They made these recipes from basic household ingredients for their own kids, and they always work great.

Years ago, before I had kids, I got the Kid Concoctions book through my donation to PBS. I used it when teaching, and I still use it now with my own kids. At the time, donating to PBS was the only way to get the book, but I noticed this Festival season that the books are now sold through Alex Toys by Amazon. We still made our donation to PBS and got three kits for our donation.

Today we made the slime, which can also be purchased through Amazon for $10:


But for $10, you could buy enough ingredients to make a lot more than three batches of slime for your kids' enjoyment. All it takes is Borax, white glue, water, and food coloring. For small batch, use:

• 3 T. water 
• 1 T. glue
• 2 T. Borax
• few drops of food coloring

Mix together in a cup or ziploc baggy.**  My preference is to start with a cup, then put into a ziploc baggy.  We also mix stuff like this in our yard.

It starts out very wet:

Stir it for a little bit till it thickens a lot:

At that point, it will only thicken the way you want it if you work it with your hands.  You decide--let the kids get their hands in there and get gloppy, or transfer it to a plastic bag and have them work it inside the zipped up baggy.

If you prefer not to have a giant mess, leave it in the bag till it looks like this.  Yes, it changed colors.  We made two batches today.

At this point, it comes out of the bag nice and clean, and they can just play with it to their heart's content.  It won't get on anything, and it won't stick to hands, floor, or clothes.  Store it in the bag, then throw it away when it stops being fun.  Make more any time.

**What you never see on any of these slime recipes is just how gross and messy this can be.  They say to have the child mix with their hand.  They don't tell you that the child will wipe the slimy glop onto her shirt and pants, and that when it's liquidy it will also blop onto the kitchen floor and be ridiculous to clean up.


This kit for Bubble Paint (which may look familiar) might be worth the price just to get all the ingredients and also ideas for what to do with the projects.



To me, though, the best deal would be this Kid Concoctions book. It cost me a $150 donation 10 years ago, but we're still getting our use from it. You can get it for $7.49 with free Prime shipping from Amazon.  I promise, you will wear this book out.



It's nearing summer break, so I will be shifting focus to fun free or nearly free activities for kids.  If you are new to the blog, you can check out the activities under the SSSS (summer sanity savers series) tag for more ideas.

Kindle Fire Accessories

If you bought the Kindle Fire for $139 last week, you may now be looking for inexpensive accessories. I have discovered a nice case for $9.19, styluses 3 for $1.00, and two screen protectors for $7.99. For under $20, you can outfit your Kindle Fire in style.



If you missed the Kindle Fire for $139, they still have the refurbished Fires for $169. It's a good price, and I've discovered so many benefits that come with your purchase.

• The refurbished Kindle Fire comes with the same one year warranty as the new Kindle Fire.
• Both the new and refurb Fires come with one month free Amazon Prime.  The Amazon Prime gets you unlimited streaming video, free access to the Kindle owners lending library, and of course free two day shipping.
• Free Cloud storage for all of your content from Amazon.
• Apps for everything!  We recently took the Kindle Fire on vacation with us, and we were able to stream movies and TV shows from Amazon and Netflix.
• Don't forget all the free books!  I have almost 300 books on my Kindle, and the only ones I bought were the 25 cent deals I posted a few weeks ago.  We have cookbooks, childrens' books, and every genre you could imagine. 

Casey's Pizza Coupons and Deals for April

Looks like there are a lot of great Casey's deals this month. They have their regular coupons, but also some good BOGO deals. They do take coupons, so you may be able to make some of these even better.

Here are the coupons for April (click link to print):

These specials are good through April 30, and no coupon needed.

• Dove ice cream bars, BOGO free!  
• Mars candy or Trident gum 2/$2
• Mentos 2/$1.50

There are more deals at the above link.  Those are just my favorites.

April Amazon FREE Downloads

I'll start with the Kindle bestsellers.  The free bestsellers are in the list on the right, but if you also look on the left, you'll see many books for under $5.  Did you know you don't even have to have a Kindle in order to read these free books?  Amazon has reader apps for many different types of devices.  You can download that HERE--free.

You can get any kind of book for free!   There are a lot of good ones that I've not seen before, so I'll post the ones that seem interesting to me.  Be sure to check them out for yourself.

 Here also is the Kindle Daily Deal.  This changes (obviously) every day, so bookmark this page.

The top Kindle books for $3.99 and under.  While they aren't free, it's nice to have a good cheap list to work from once you've downloaded and read EVERY free book there is.  (Is that possible?)

On to the free music...  You can start here on the bestsellers list.  The top 100 free downloads are in the list on the right.  Some are singles, and some are entire albums.   Find your favorites, or try out some new artists.  When it's free, anything goes.

 Don't forget the cheap MP3s for the month.  Since this is a free post, I'll just post the link to the April $5 whole album downloads.  They're all alt and indie albums.  Even better this month are the UNDER $5 albums.  There are great current albums like Maroon 5 for $3.99!

And just one more FREEBIE!  You need a FREE android app every day, right?  Bookmark this page, too.

April Amazon Grocery Deals

April already!

We'll start with the "clippable" click coupons.  They're always listed in my Amazon post on top, but I'll include them here as well.  I understand people in NY state may not get as many as those of us in other places.  The key here is that the coupons change when you refresh, so if you don't see one that is mentioned, refresh till you do.

The Managers' specials are HERE.

Now for the coupon codes and markdowns!  Remember there's already the 15% with Subscribe and Save, so the coupon code is just added to the per cent off.  You can see all the deals right here . 

(So far, they still have the March deals, but I will add the new ones when they come)

For now, take advantage of 50% off Easter candy, and:

• Some great deals on Kellogg's cereals.  It became apparent that I need to review my opinion of a good price, since HyVee recently had these for half price--$2 a box!  Here is the link to all the ones on sale.  I don't see any stellar deals right now, but the prices will drop throughout the month.
• The Movers and Shakers list, which will show you the deals being snapped up.  I check this every day to find the best Amazon grocery prices.

Watch throughout the month for the short term deals.