Have you ever wondered how to make glue? You can make your own homemade glue – even specialty crafting glues. Why would you want to do that? It’s not as if it’s always much of a money-saver. But it’s fun, interesting and educational.
Many of these glues are safe for kids to help with. And you can make exactly the glue you like in exactly the amounts you need.
Making Glue is a Craft Project In Itself
You may be wondering why you’d want to do this. It’s true that store-bought glue is mostly cheap and effective, though some specialty glues are expensive and hard to find.
One reason is that it’s fun. Making glue is a craft in and of itself, and if you’re crafty, that’s something you’ll enjoy.
Another reason is that you can in some cases make a better glue for your purposes. This is especially true if you’re doing an arts or crafts project with particular needs.
And you won’t have to worry about store-bought glue drying out before you can use it up, so you end up buying more. When you make it yourself, you’ll rarely have any glue going to waste.
Besides, learning how to make glue for yourself is a form of crafting. It’s fun, interesting and educational, especially if you can involve kids.
What Projects Can Use Homemade Glue?
You can use homemade glue in paper crafting, constructing model airplanes, collages, scrapbooking, making homemade envelopes and paper mache. You can also use these around the house for repairing broken crockery and even making minor repairs to furniture.
Ingredients to Make Homemade Glue
Supplies to Store Homemade Glue
Some of the supplies you need are items you may already have around the house. Others, you may need to buy. One thing you’ll need is a sealable container to store the glue.
I like these reusable glue bottles. They have a good size opening for refilling, and I haven’t had any trouble with leaking. They’re air tight, which keeps the glue from drying out or molding.
Other than that, all you need to make these easy recipes is a bowl and spoon or whisk, and a saucepan to make any of the cooked recipes. You’re just going to be putting ingredients together in a bowl to stir them.
Learn How to Make Glue At Home
It’s so simple to make homemade instead of going for store bought glue. Some of these recipes involve no cooking and can be made safely by younger kids. Supervision is always a good idea.
Most of these involve a little bit of cooking – mainly just boiling water, adding ingredients and stirring. They’re as easy to make as a simple pasta sauce, and older kids can safely make them as long as they know how to use stoves and saucepans safely.
Please note: I keep getting asked what glue would be safe to put on skin. I’m not a scientist, so all I can say is that all of these ingredients are edible, according to the internet, so they should be safe. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have a reaction of some sort – people can be allergic or sensitive to almost anything.
11 Homemade Craft Glue Recipes
The most basic of the homemade glues, which you may already be familiar with, is a flour-based glue. This is a very easy glue to make.
It tends to dry out over time and stop holding together whatever it was holding together, but it's fine for, say, crafting decorations you only intend to keep up for a few hours.
If it starts to dry while you're working with it, just add more water a few drops at a time. If you accidentally make it to thin, just stir in flour to thicken it.
It works very well for paper mache projects, although there's another version below that's slightly better. The drying out part doesn't matter because once the whole project dries, it forms a shell that will last a while.
This cornstarch glue recipes is a basic glue that works well in paper craft projects and anything involving cardboard. The cornstarch mixture makes it good for holding paper together without making ripples or bubbles.
This makes yet another basic homemade glue. This one has a good consistency for making slime.
Paper mache is simply pieces of paper applied to a mold with glue. This is the recipe for making another version of flour and water glue that works great for these projects.
This glue is made with gum arabic, which makes it very strong. To use: dip a matchstick into it to apply a very thin coat of it to both sides of broken crockery, and then fit the pieces together. As you would do with Superglue, hold the pieces firmly together until the glue dries, which could be up to an hour.
This makes a simple paste suitable for kids' crafts. It's a lot like that paste you used in school for arts and crafts time.
This one is so easy, and kids can totally make it themselves. It makes a thick paste that won't hold forever, but is suitable for kids' crafts.
When you're gluing something together that's going to go under water, you need a glue that doesn't melt. This waterproof glue recipe is the one you need.
This waterproof glass glue, or milk glue, is strong and can also stand up to water. It works a lot like super glue, in fact. It can be used to mend broken china, like super glue. It also works well to glue labels on cans and jars, or to glue glass to other surfaces. All in all, it's pretty strong.
If you making your own envelopes, you'll need a very special glue recipe. Learn how to make envelope glue that will dry on paper and be activated by water.
It's easy to learn how to make library paste. This is a fun homemade craft that's perfect for gluing together booklets or even repairing old books.
