Next week it’s school holidays again, and although we’re all hoping for awesome sunny weather, it’s the middle of winter here in the Southern Hemisphere, and there’s nothing worse than having bored kids during rainy holidays!
Some easy crafts for kids of all ages is making their own soaps and bath bombs. It’s such a creative and fun thing to do and kids just love it! I should know, because the kids holiday programs always book out so quickly!
Check out the following tutorials, which will keep your kids busy for while:
Using the ever popular jelly soap base (available here), you can create your own awesome Lush-like jelly soaps and use your creativity to make them even more fun, like these fish soaps. And for more tips on using jelly soap click here.
You can buy some great (and cheap) silicon moulds from places like K-mart. These only cost me $2 each, and they make for great little soaps with an easy-to-use melt and pour soap base (available here).
You can make some cool soaps with these soap bases, using food colouring to colour them and essential oils to scent them. Here are the detailed instructions on how to use soap bases, and here are some more great soap ideas:
Bath bombs are another popular craft to keep the kids busy and you don’t need special ingredients for it either. The 2 key ingredients in bath bombs are citric acid and baking soda, both which you can buy from your local supermarket. Like the melt and pour soaps, you can use food colouring to colour them, and essential oils to scent them. Mix 2 parts baking soda with 1 part citric acid, and spray lightly with water to wet the mixture (only a little bit, otherwise it will start to fizz prematurely). Fill your moulds (muffin tins, empty yoghurt pots, or other little moulds), pack it tightly and then carefully remove the bath bomb. Dry out overnight and it’s ready for use! The detailed instructions on how to make bath bombs you can find here.
To help you put together a little ‘professional kit’ to get the kids started, here’s a list of things to get:
- 2 kg baking soda
- 1 kg citric acid
- 1 kg clear melt and pour soap
- 1 kg white melt and pour soap
- 1 kg bubble bath base
- 1 kg glycerin
- optional: jelly soap
- 2 sets of small bath bomb moulds
- 8 clamshell soap moulds (these are re-usable)
- 3-4 micas to use as colourants
- 2-3 skin safe fragrances or essential oils (more expensive)
- little plastic figure toys from 2dollar shop
- cute silicon ice cube trays (pineapple, unicorn, cactus) from Kmart
- anything else you will probably have in your pantry
You can get all these ingredients (except where mentioned) from Pure Nature, and the total cost is roughly around $100, which should be enough to keep 2 kids busy for a while and make lots and lots of soaps, bath bombs, bubble baths and more!
And last, but not least, this is probably the most popular tutorial for kids on the blog! The play dough will keep for a while sealed in a ziplock bag, and will make for hours of entertainment in the bath! To make this you will need corn starch, vegetable oil, glycerin and liquid soap, fragrance and colourants. Here are the instructions on how to make play dough soap.
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