If you've been anywhere around primary-school children this past year, you've heard them wax poetic about slime.
We're not talking here about the oozing texture of decomposing vegetables, but a complex colloid usually* made from copious amounts of white or clear glue (particularly Elmer's glue products) that has been partially solidified by the reaction of baking soda (a mild acid) with borax, detergent, or contact lens solution (mild bases), and given color and texture with food dyes, acrylic paints, glitter, pompoms, miniature styrofoam balls, pony beads, pieces of string, googly eyes, and pretty much anything these youngsters can get a hold of.
Slime has been a strong component of Michaels' children's craft supply sales and family events since the beginning of the summer, along with a number of slime-themed events. Parents have been purchasing gallon upon gallon of glue for slime-making; kids have been trading slime, giving it away, and even starting their own slime businesses. Some have become YouTube stars, demonstrating new or different slime recipes.
Like most adults, I didn't get the attraction of slime — so I asked some of our young customers. At its most basic, playing with slime gives kids the same sort of hand-stress release that adults get from foam-filled stress balls (and other-shaped promotional items). But it goes a bit further, and as "they" say, you really have to play with it a bit to understand the attraction. I got a chance to do this as "leader" for our October 7 "MAKEbreak: Customize Pumpkin Slime" event.
Slime is not as stiff as stress-ball foam. It can be stretched out like dough (even thinner than many doughs!), and plain slime is great for massaging the spaces between your fingers. The texturizers (those beads and pompoms and stuff) can stimulate small areas like the pads of one's fingers. Except for leaving my fingers feeling covered in glue residue, I can easily understand how kids like to keep kneading, squeezing, and stretching those balls of slime.
Slime's visual and tactile stimulation brings to mind Twiddlemuffs, a leftover-yarn charity project discussed on the LoveKnitting and LoveCrochet blogs. These muffs, made from multiple colors and textures of yarn, with buttons and notions sewn inside and out, help calm Alzheimer's and dementia patients and help them focus. (They are in some ways low-tech versions of the "fidget boxes" that were popular these past two summers.)
In addition to our earlier pumpkin slime event, we'll be having a free MAKEbreak: Customize Glow in the Dark Slime event this coming Saturday (the 21st) from 1 to 3PM, and a tuition-free (you will need to purchase supplies) Make-Your-Own Slime Cupcake event on the the evening of October 30th.
*YouTube videos have recipes for slime made from other ingredients such as liquid or colloidal soaps and sugar or salt, nail polish and vegetable oil, or Crayola Model Magic and hand lotion, but most of these require a couple days' standing plus freezer time in order to cure.
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