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

Probably the biggest fail was the gingerbread house made by DD and a friend. Making the syrup to stick the pieces together was trickier than expected and they had to use a lot of syrup. They put the house on a tray and set it to dry on the window sill - very deep window sill - and I closed the curtains. The next morning I had forgotten about the gingerbread house when I opened the curtains. Resulting in curtains and carpet festooned with sticky syrup and bits of gingerbread!

When we did the Diet Coke and Mentos geyser and broke a pain of glass in my husbands greenhouse (oh those prize tomatoes). We cleared up the evidence and had to make a quick trip to B&Q for a replacement pane (£50 down for a 29 pence bottle of coke).

Making slime and DD crying as her hands were too stuck together and she couldn't clean it up.
Letting children play with cornflour goo on wooden floorboards - there's still some down the gaps between the boards now.

Oh yes, the volcano, definitely an outdoor activity. DH had to re-paint the kitchen ceiling while we were out at Beavers as the house was on the market at the time.

Has to be making glitter covered snowflakes this Christmas, DS1 stuck them on my patio doors with pritt stick (for a lovely festive look) - we had glitter and glue everywhere - and have you ever tried to get dried on hardened glitter/pritt combination ?

DD watched the Great British Sewing Bee and wanted to make something. Cue trip to the market for cheap material, internet pattern printed off and opportunity to pass on sewing skills. Gave up on pattern, adapted it: result shorts were too short, too small, basically a disaster. Plenty of material left over, daughter left to her own devices (more or less) and the chance to experiment, so all not lost...

Most of our craft failures are that we never finish them. We did an experiment with an egg that was covered, put to one side and forgotten about. It got knocked and the egg smashed and the smell was unbelievable.

Hama beads - they go everywhere, and then the creations fall apart and there are many tears.

I once superglued my eye shut and had to be taken to hospital when I tried to show the children how to glue something...they proceeded to do pirate impressions to me all of the way home, whilst I donned my new eye patch!!

tried to do handprints for my 1 year olds baby journal-...........big mistake. paint all over her clothes- my clothes- carpets- setees,

I read in a parenting mag that by turning a paddling pool red with food colouring my son’s creative experience would be enriched. What I didn’t read was that his gorgeous creamy blond hair would take on a semi permanent ginger tinge for the rest of the summer!

I thought I'd try and be creative and make our own paint. So I chucked in plenty of food colouring. The paint was going well, my son loved brushing it into the paper then he used his hands and got a little messy which was great, we encourage messy play. He then painted his arms, belly and face. Super fun. Went to wash the paint off him and his skin was stained 😳 turns out I put too much food colouring into the batches! The childminder was amused the following day when she seen him 😂😂

Haha, our story included food colouring that wouldn't shift too 😂😂

When my granddaughter came to stay, we decided we would learn to do origami.
We searched the internet and found a beginner's guide, also YouTube videos demonstrating the craft.
It looked quite easy, we thought, and decided to make a bird. The first attempt ended up looking more like a chicken with strange looking wings, and a bendy beak! Not to be put off, we thought we would try something more simple.
Deciding to make a fan, we struggled with the paper folding and wrecked the paper, the 'boat' would never sail, the plane crash-landed, You get the picture!
We ended up walking to the park ...

My Dad made a volcano with the children which one of them had been given. Only he made it in my kitchen and put way too much bicarb and vinegar in it and therefore sprayed the kitchen with red vinegar. He (and the children!) thought it was hilarious...

Last year when my son was in Nursery they had an easter egg competition which he really wanted to enter - now im not creative in the slightest so it was 100% his own efforts (unlike some other entries i saw that day cough cough) He decided he wanted to make the My Little Pony characters and rummaging thru our arts n crafts box to find different things he could use for the cutie marks. Hours later...and i do mean hours of effort.....chuffed as anything with the results he puts them all into the eggbox and holds them up proudly for me to take a phto.....only to then drop them and id not boiled them long enough they cracked and was runny!! :-(
Cue lots of tears from my son and me feeling like the worst mum ever! He insisted on still taking the gooey eggs into school and telling his teacher "this was mummys fault!" needless to say, we didnt win the competition!

One word - SLIME!

We have tried what seems like almost every recipe out there many different recipes and it's just not worked, I hate to think how much I've spent just to have the DC disappointed when it doesn't work

My DC aged 2 is currently very into “writing”. We had worked together to make a lovely birthday card for DC’s little friend, and when it was done I wrote a message inside. “I write too”, insisted DC, and promptly got a thick black felt tip and, to all intents and purposes, scribbled out the friendly greeting.

My daughter’s school had frog spawn at school to support their lifecycle topic in Reception. We offered to take the growing froglets home in the holidays and set them free in our garden pond.....but on the way home we popped into a local shop and managed to leave the froglets on the counter... Luckily, after a frantic phone call to the shop with a distraught daughter in the backhround , the lovely shop owner offered to take care of them until we could pick them up again.....

I watched a tv show where they made an Easter egg by covering a balloon with melted chocolate then letting it down after it set. Looked easy! I missed the small detail that you have to let the melted chocolate cool before spreading it on the balloon. Predictably the balloon exploded with the heat and flung hot melted chocolate everywhere. Ceiling, walls, floor, me, child... Child stood there in shocked surprise for a moment then began to wail. I spent a LONG time cleaning up.

We did an experiment with an egg that was covered, put to one side and forgotten about. It got knocked and the egg smashed and the smell was unbelievable
We did this once. Painted eggs and put them on display in the china cabinet. Broke one 15 years later and the smell was like nothing else I’ve ever smelled. The other egg remains unbroken in the cabinet 35 years on...

‘No mess’ marbling using shaving foam and leftover food colouring (purple, blue and black).

The result: unusable pieces of paper with lumps of dry foam and dark splodges, which stank of Gillette sensitive mint fragrance and two children who looked like I’d spent the afternoon slamming their hands in the car door as the food colouring visibly stained for the next two days.

We have had face painting disaster! We did it together and then the next day dd thought she’d have a go herself but instead of the facepaint she used longlast lipstick and every bit of makeup she could get her hands on!

Making Easter bonnets with DD and managed to superglue a plastic chick to her finger. I tired to give it a gentle tug but she kept crying so we had to soak her hand and gently remove it a bit at a time - it took ages!

crafting with beads, making jewellery was going fine until we completely upended our massive box of beads and findings etc which resulted in beads (tiny tiny beads) absolutely everywhere for weeks and it took ages to put back in the box properly. put us off beads for a while.