Spring Slime Recipe with Crystal Clear Slime | Little Bins for Little Hands

Are you waiting for spring and summer like I am? It’s not here yet, but I can totally share a flowery spring slime recipe with you just the same. Learning how to make clear slime is the perfect way to showcase vibrant sparkly confetti for any season or holiday!

EASY TO MAKE FLOWERY SPRING SLIME RECIPE USING CLEAR SLIME!

I love theme confetti and it’s such an easy and quick way to dress up a batch of homemade slime for any season or holiday. Looking back, I am pretty sure we have used some sort of theme confetti for every single holiday or season in the past few years. Yes, we have been making slime that long!

MASTER CLEAR SLIME

Because we have been making slime for years, I feel extremely confident in our homemade slime recipes and want to pass them along to you. Slime making is a bit of a science, a cooking lesson, and an art form all in one! You can read more about the science down below.

Mastering the clear slime recipe is the best way to get started with this slime. Watch for the video coming out later this week! There are two ways to make clear slime which we will discuss below.

Confetti looks nice in colored slime too, so you really can use any of our basic slime recipes if you want to add some color to your slime.

We also added chunky glitter and regular glitter for added sparkle and shine. You should not overfill your slime with too much confetti and glitter as it can disrupt the strands of molecules that form the slime.

Clear glue is a bit stiffer in nature over white glue, so it does have a tendency to be a bit less stretchy.

Make sure to grab this free printable just below by clicking on the black box. It’s a handy resource to have on hand or to add to a homemade slime making kit! This slime recipe cheat sheet includes some of our most popular and basic slime recipes.

No more having to print out a WHOLE blog post for just one recipe!

Get our basic slime recipes in an easy to print format so you can knock out the activities!

—>>> FREE SLIME RECIPE CARDS

SPRING SLIME RECIPE SUPPLIES

I always recommend that you read through our RECOMMENDED SLIME SUPPLIES RESOURCE PAGE to check out all the items that we like to use for making the best slime EVER!

1/2 cup Elmer’s Washable PVAClear Glue
1/2 cup water to mix with glue and 1/2 cup of warm water to mix with the borax powder
1/4 tsp Borax Powder {laundry aisle}
Measuring cups, bowl, spoon or craft sticks
Flower confetti and glitter as desired

CLEAR SLIME RECIPE

As I mentioned above, the borax powder is the best slime activator for creating a truly clear slime. However, if using borax powder is not an option for you, check out our modified saline solution slime recipe here.

See recipe instructions below.

Get your workspace set up with spring slime recipe supplies. I like to make sure everything is handy before I get started. Somehow I always manage to forget a spoon.

Additionally, I like to save mixing the borax solution for last after I prep the glue and water and add the confetti and glitter!

This is the borax solution slime activator, I am holding below. You can read more about slime activators here.

Freshly mixed spring slime recipe is ready for little hands! Slime is not only awesome science, but it is also an amazing tactile sensory play.

We have plenty of SPRING SCIENCE activities to check out too. We also had a great trying out this borax crystal growing activity with a pipe cleaner flower.

MAKE CLEAR SLIME STEP BY STEP

STEP 1: In a bowl mix 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup of glue. Mix well to combine completely.

STEP 2: Make up your slime activator by mixing together 1/4 tsp borax powder and 1/2 cup warm water in a separate bowl. Hot tap water is fine and does not need to be boiled. This step is best done by an adult. Spend a minute stirring to make sure the borax powder is well mixed in.

STEP 3: Add the borax slime activator solution {borax powder and water} to the glue/water mixture. Start stirring! Your slime will begin to form instantly. Keep stirring until your slime has formed and remove immediately to a dry container.

With our new ratio of borax powder to water, you should not have any leftover liquid in the bowl. If you do keep stirring. With higher ratios of borax to water, you may have leftover liquid.

STEP 4: Start kneading your slime! It will appear stringy at first but just work it around with your hands and you will notice the consistency changes.

You can knead the slime in the bowl before you pick it up as well. This slime is stretchy but can be stickier. However, keep in mind that although adding more activator (borax powder) reduces the stickiness, it will eventually create a stiffer slime. You can always add but you can’t take away!

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SPRING SLIME RECIPE

What’s the science behind the slime? The borate ions in the slime activators (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 and is made up of long, repeating, and identical strands or molecules. These molecules flow past one another keeping the glue in a liquid state. Until…

When you add the borate ions to the mixture, it 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 rubberier like slime!

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

Is slime a liquid or solid? We call it a Non-newtonian fluid because it’s a little bit of both!

ELMER’S CLEAR GLUE SLIME LIQUID GLASS TIP!

We made this large batch of slime and it was filled with air bubbles, so it wasn’t crystal clear and it didn’t look like glass at all! But it was still a lot of fun and cool to play with too.

We stuck it in a glass container and put a lid on it and it ended up sitting on the counter untouched for a day and a half while we were busy with swim and school and friends.

My son checked on it and noticed that the large air bubbles were much less large.

We let it sit even longer and the bubbles were even smaller and almost nonexistent. Well, there’s only so long you can let the slime sit before playing with it again.

We did test this out on three separate batches of our Elmer’s clear glue slime to just check it out.

HOW DO YOU STORE SLIME?

Slime lasts quite a while! I get a lot of questions regarding how I store my slime. We use reusable containers in either plastic or glass. Make sure to keep your slime clean and it will last for several weeks. I love the deli-style containers I have listed in my recommended slime supplies list.

If you want to send kids home with a bit of slime from a camp, party, or classroom project, I would suggest packages of reusable containers from the dollar store or grocery store or even Amazon. For large groups, we have used condiment containers and labels as seen here.

We have the best resources to look through before, during, and after making your (KEYWORD) slime! Make sure to go back and read the slime science above too!