When I started thinking about Christmas this year I decided that I wanted to make some gifts by hand with the girls. I think it’s important to me that they love giving as much as getting this holiday season. Like any 6 and 7 year old girls our daughters are a bit obsessed with Lush so I started looking online for easy and kid-friendly bath bomb and bubble bar recipes. I came across this brilliant demo on how to make Bubble Bars without ordering powdered SLSA online. The video is super cute and is narrated by a young lady called Krystal who does a fantastic job. Watch it here and learn her secrets! Make sure to give her a thumbs up too or even follow her brilliant YouTube channel.
We used her recipe but I made a few adjustments… We bought Simple shower gel as it was the least scented and we added our own flavours at home (at the same time we coloured the mixture) using stuff from the baking cupboard. (NOTE. Upon testing the bubble bars the Simple didn’t really suds up well so next time we’ll use actual bubble bath, something with glycerin for strong bubbles) V added lemon extract, vanilla and orange blossom water and P added vanilla and peppermint. We divided the mixture into 4 bowls and they used cookie cutters as molds for the mixure. We then decorated them with sugar flowers and spinkles from the cupboard and set them into foil lined baking cups. Most of the advice we found online was to let them dry for 3 days before handling but we are not known for our patience… So, I popped them into an oven at 60 degrees for 1 hour to dry out. This made the food colour react and change colour on the outside with when crumbled they are the original colours inside, which was pretty cool! I added a light spray of gold and silver food spray and they look truly magical…
This morning we made a list of who they were for and the girls wrote out tags and we popped them in simple sandwich bags and the girls tied them closed with gold ribbons (practicing fine motor skills – see what I did there?!)
All in all this was a great activity for kids. They loved being a bit messy, the decorating was easy and fun, it’s a product they’d want themselves, we got to reflect on the joy of giving, and they practiced writing, spelling and tying knots and bows. We got everything we needed from the supermarket for around £10 but you could spend more or less depending on how fancy you feel like being… WINNER!