Clay Slime Recipe for Smooth Butter Slime

There are so many unique homemade slime recipes out there to try, and a hot one right now is clay slime or butter slime. It has the smoothest, most buttery texture and is easy to make! Once you have mastered the basic slime recipe, a unique slime like this soft clay slime is a cinch!

HOW TO MAKE CLAY SLIME

BUTTER SLIME OR CLAY SLIME

Is clay slime butter slime? Yes, it’s the addition of clay to the basic slime recipe that makes for a fun butter slime. Read on to find out what clay to use and how to make clay slime step by step.

What’s cool about this slime? First, it stays nice and stretchy for a lot longer. Second, it’s a bit moldable. Third, it has a smooth, rich, and silky feeling texture!

Butter slime only requires one extra ingredient and can be made using any of our three basic slime recipes. I will tell you which is my favorite below because we experimented with all three of them to find out which makes the best butter slime! 

The slime recipe you use depends on what slime activator you have. Do you have borax powder, liquid starch or saline solution?

Here we use saline solution to make our butter slime. Now if you don’t want to use saline solution, you can test out one of our other basic recipes using liquid starch or borax powder. We have tested all three recipes with equal success!

THE SCIENCE OF SLIME

We always like to include a bit of homemade slime science around here!  Slime is an excellent chemistry demonstration, and kids love it too!   

Mixtures, substances, polymers, cross-linking, states of matter, elasticity, and viscosity are just a few science concepts that can be explored with homemade slime!

How do you make slime?  The borate ions in the slime activator (sodium borate, borax powder, or boric acid) mix with the PVA (polyvinyl acetate) glue and form this cool, stretchy substance. This is called cross-linking!

The glue is a polymer of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules with flow past one another and keep the glue liquid. Until…

You add the borate ions to the mixture, and it then starts to connect these long strands together. They begin to tangle and mix until the substance is less like the liquid you started with and thicker and rubbery like slime! Slime is a polymer.

Picture the difference between wet spaghetti and leftover spaghetti the next day. As the slime forms, the tangled molecule strands are much like a clump of spaghetti!

Is slime a liquid or solid?

Slime is called a Non-Newtonian fluid because it’s a bit of both!  Experiment with making the slime more or less viscous with varying amounts of foam beads. Can you change the density?

HOW TO ADD CLAY TO SLIME

Note: If you want to make a butter slime but don’t have clay… look at our Butter Slime without Clay recipe!

Once you have made your slime, it’s time to mix in the clay to make that smooth butter slime!

Can you use any clay for slime? There are several types of clay you can use. We have chosen to use the Crayola Model Magic clay as it’s readily available.

The key is to use only so much, depending on how soft the clay is! The denser the clay, like our clay below, the less you want to use. A softer clay will require you to use more. Feel free to experiment with the consistency you like the most.

We have experimented with two different amounts of the Crayola Model Magic clay and found that mixing 1/3 of a standard 4-ounce package worked nicely. The first time we used 1/2 a package. We ended up with a thicker slime, which was less stretchy.

MIXING YOUR CLAY SLIME TIPS

Get your muscles ready for this one! Mixing this will take a few minutes, so don’t get discouraged that it doesn’t happen immediately.

You might even think it won’t work initially, but keep kneading your slime, and it will come together for you!

We chose to start with yellow slime and add reddish-colored clay to it. We have also mixed blue and green and pink and orange! There are so many possibilities, including using black and white clay!

STEP 1. Start by softening up your clay.

STEP 2. Next, flatten it out, and put on top of your slime.

STEP 3. Then start folding and mixing and kneading and squishing. Remember it will come together and make one smooth color like you see in the last few photos.

You did it! Your clay slime recipe is now ready to play with. We love making handprints in ours. Soft butter slime is so squishy and relaxing to play with too.

Printable Slime Recipe Guide

BUTTER SLIME RECIPE

SLIME INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup of PVA White Glue
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• Food coloring
• 2 oz of soft modeling clay
• 1 tbsp of saline solution

HOW TO MAKE BUTTER SLIME

STEP 1: Add 1/2 cup of PVA Glue to your bowl.

STEP 2: Mix the glue with a 1/2 cup of water.

STEP 3: Add food coloring as desired.

STEP 4: Stir in 1/2 tsp baking soda.

STEP 5: Mix in 1 tbsp saline solution and stir until slime forms and pulls away from sides of bowl.

This is exactly how much you will need with the Target Sensitive Eyes brand, but other brands may differ slightly!

If your slime still feels too sticky, you may need a few more drops of saline solution. As I mentioned above, start by squirting a few drops of the solution onto your hands and kneading your slime longer. You can always add but you can’t take away!

Check out our how to fix slime guide!

STEP 6: You can knead in your soft clay once your slime is made! This will take a few minutes and some good hand strengthening to get it all worked in well.

Click on the image below or on the link for more awesome homemade slime recipes.