Mumsnet users share with Frankie & Benny’s the craft activities or kids experiments that have gone wrong

[EllieMumsnet]

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Arts & crafts, cool science experiments, baking...they all sound such fun and great ways to spend an afternoon with your child/children and 99% of the time they are. Sometimes though, something might go a little left; maybe it wasn’t really the kind of trajectory you had in mind for that rocket or perhaps you put a bit too much bicarbonate soda in that science experiment and ended up giving a lesson on explosives instead. With that in mind Frankie & Benny’s would love to know all the craft activities and kids experiments that you’ve tried to do and have gone wrong.

Here’s what Frankie & Benny’s have to say: “We know Easter holidays are a key time for any family to spend time and do activities together. Whether it’s going out to share a meal, going to see a movie or entertaining the kids with home experiments, we all love to try new things. This half term, Frankie & Benny’s is giving away free slime with every kids’ meal and we want parents to share with us their home experiments disaster stories, including those who’ve tried to make their very own slime!”

Perhaps you too have tried to make slime and you’re still finding it in different places all over the house? Or maybe you tried to help your child with their homework, mistook superglue for PVA glue and are still trying to pick bits of your hands? Or maybe you tried a famous sweet and fizzy drink experiment and immediately regretted it?

Whatever craft activities or kids experiments you’ve done that have gone wrong share them on the thread below and everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw
MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs Apply

[BristolMum96]

As noted in original post - the famous bicarb! Make your own volcano kit! Should have done outside in garden, not on nice carpet.

[CMOTDibbler]

All my slime fails . Our biggest craft fail was when another child was visiting on Halloween and they wanted their face painted. Not a problem, though I had to use makeup rather than facepaint as I didn't have any. But I picked up long wear eyeliner. And it turned out she was a bridesmaid the next day. Fortunatly her mum was very cool about

[bridgetosomewhere]

The time we tried to make slime from blu tack and hand soap.

Three hours of kneading and all we got was slimy blu tack

[munchbunch12]

Any picture with glitter! I'm a bit like Madame Gazellewith this... I say no to it... they beg... and we always end up with a glitter storm that goes EVERYWHERE!

[Good0mens]

My son decided sticky-backed felt would make him a fantastic beard so he cut out pieces and stuck them all over his face. Once we had all had a good laugh at how he looked, we peeled the felt off but it left a sticky layer of glue which quickly attracted dirt and fluff and hair... he was left with a grim dirt beard! Getting it off aged me ten years and involved rubbing a weird mixture of oil and bicarb on him when all else had failed!

[Asuwere]

DC did the cola/mentos thing in the garden, unfortunately the bottle was accidentally knocked over and filled the open playhouse with a sticky, wet mess!

(As an aside, why would anyone think slime is a good thing to give kids while eating?!)

[DaisyDando]

I recently googled how to make those lovely bubble pictures I remember from my own school days.
I didn't have any poster paint so thought I'd substitute food colouring. So far so ineffective. Both DS and I ingested the bubble mixture through the straws (stupidity.)
To top it all off I picked up my two litres of bubble mixture by the lid, which obviously wasn't screwed on, and so the wooden floor of our rented house was awash with slimy bubble mixture.
All it needed was a comedy fall.

[user1496959500]

Let him light a Catherine wheel and it ended up spinning around the garden. Bath bombs collapsed and didn’t set. Cookies turned to burnt sugar and not much else!

[JC4PMPLZ]

Endless fails. Recently some milk based Coolmorph was to be moulded into a tiger tooth. No. It was a wizened bumpy lump of yellowness. Disappointing.

[pearldeodorant]

Making a lovely family photo with handprints in early learning centre dark blue paint...2 DC with permanently blue hands for 3 days afterwards. Funny but mortifying for me!

[ItsHardToExplain]

We tried to make chocolate crispies because they are easy.
We put the chocolate in the microwave but got distracted and left it in for 3 minutes. It stank so much it made us feel sick and we had to just eat the cereal with milk instead whilst we sat by an opened window.

[Quietvoiceplease]

Oh, I've lost count. But this month's delights have been homemade slime that DDs friend dropped onto rug and it won't come out no matter how hard I've tried, cake making which resulted in an entire bottle of food colouring being dropped and splashed over floor and white wall, like a murder scene, and an attempt at flapjack which involved lots of money spent on ingredients but ended up so burnt that they - and the tin - had to be ditched.

[kateandme]

wanted to do facepaints.we didn't have any.came in he room to major improvisation and had used poster pain and markers.oh crap.

tried to make crunchie.the hob was ruined.

made coloured sand vases.we.are.still.finding.the.sand.everywhere

[voyager50]

He had made dried pasta pictures and decided he wanted to try with the cooked pasta he's found in the fridge and tried putting glue on it - and it just trend into a slimy mess.

[BollockyBagels]

This was my nephew many years ago after a particularly cold night which had left a thick, frosty covering over my brother's car. This was extremely appealing to my then 6 year old nephew who decided to get creative and write his name, Alexander (his name has never been shortened by any of us) in the frost. Such an endearing idea, except rather than using his finger, he used a stone which not only went through the frost, but also penetrated the paintwork and scratched the whole of the side of the car too. Needless to say, his parents were not impressed by his 'frost art'! Luckily my own DC have never had the urge to do anything like this, although we have had a few other disasters along the way.......

[BollockyBagels]

This was my nephew many years ago after a particularly cold night which had left a thick, frosty covering over my brother's car. This was extremely appealing to my then 6 year old nephew who decided to get creative and write his name, Alexander (his name has never been shortened by any of us) in the frost. Such an endearing idea, except rather than using his finger, he used a stone which not only went through the frost, but also penetrated the paintwork and scratched the whole of the side of the car too. Needless to say, his parents were not impressed by his 'frost art'! Luckily my own DC have never had the urge to do anything like this, although we have had a few other disasters along the way.......

[daisyjean2008]

Painting with the children. Had large bottles of poster paint. Was talking and trying to squirt out the paint, the red paint bottle would not let any paint out. I gave it one almighty squeeze, the top shot off and sprayed everyone, especially me, with red paint.

[jacqui5366]

We decided to get a roll of wallpaper, and draw around DS1 an DS2, cut it out and for them to colour in and make their own figure.
I drew round them, and realised I'd used a sharpie, so the silhouette was permanently on my dining rook floor, so until I could find something to clean the silhouettes off my dining room laminate flooring - It looked more like a crime scene than a dining room floor. [big grin]

[MTBMummy]

Actually an experiment from when I was a child with long blonde hair. I decided that dying my hair with food colouring was a good idea. The blue food colouring turned my hair green and I had to have a short pixie cut to be allowed back at school after the summer holidays...

But as a pp has mentioned - sodding glitter - DH's aunt bought DD (8 at the time) 5 x 1kg tubs of sodding glitter, and 6 months and a new carpet later - I still find glitter everywhere

[Hunkyd0ry]

I made a volcano for my daughter, she wanted it to be pink. It was only afterwards that I realised it looked like something else.....

[MrsFrTedCrilly]

Glitter, the devils bloody dandruff hate the stuff, every time there’s craft the house is covered in it. All magazines are now vetted before they cross the threshold.
And then there was the time I built an angry birds game from cake... and encouraged the kids to play it! There was rather a lot of green piggies smashed and it only took a few months to clean all the stray fondant crumbs up, should definitely have done that one outside

[sarat1]

Made own bubble mixture but then found the floor became dangerously slippery and ended up with tears!

[sharond101]

Baking fail.... hyped up a Victoria slime only to put the oven onto the grill setting!! Not so good.

[buckley1983]

I got it into my head that it would great fun to do some paper marbling with my son. i remembered doing it as a kid & really enjoying it so I hyped it up to him - then got out the food colouring, oil & a deep tray filled with water to lay the paper in.
We had a great time throwing in the food colouring & the oil - but when we laid the paper on top, it was just a watery, greasy mess! I was madly trying to google what I should be doing, & adding paint & shaving foam at random in the hope that something might create the effect of marbling. Didn't work! Just lots of greasy, wet bits of A4 paper & a confused son!
We still had fun though, although I still have no clue how to marble paper - I really don't remember it being that hard!!

[foxessocks]

My dc are obsessed with sellotape at the moment. I came downstairs the other day to find ds has sellotaped himself to the door