Do Water Blobs Work? – Pinterest Fact Check

Pinterest is great.  We always find the best, most creative things there. If you’ve done any kid related searches on Pinterest in the last six months you have seen these Water Blob pins.   When planning activities for our Frozen Birthday Party we thought that one of the activity stations could be a water blob.  We were going to call it the Arendelle Ice Pond! All the posts we read said how easy the water blobs are to make and how fun they are for kids.  Thankfully, we set it up the night before the party because our water blob didn’t quite live up to all the hype.  So before you start planning a party around this popular Pinterest kid’s craft check out our Water Blob Pinterest Fact Check! 

Water Blobs – Are They Hard to Make?

On this score we agree with our fellow Water Blob creators – these Water Blobs are definitely easy to make.  We used a 3.5 mil. 10′ x 25′ piece of plastic sheeting, folded it in half and then used an iron to melt the edges together to create a water-tight seam.  Super easy!

30 minutes after we took the plastic sheeting out the package we had our water blob ready to be filled with water.  So far so good!

Our water blob was 10′ x 12.5′ – not gigantic by any means.  But WOW did it take a lot of water to fill it.  We are in the midst of a drought here in California so we really felt guilty about using so much water to fill this thing.  Be forwarned on this score, after 20 minutes the water blob was only partially filled with water.

Another strange thing that happened was that our water blob had a gigantic air pocket that didn’t go away after we had finished filling the water blob with water.  The air bubble really hindered the fun.

To get rid of the air pocket Nancy, Allison and I had to get on the water blob and roll around on it until we pushed all of the the air out of the hole we used to fill the water blob with water. This was a gigantic pain and took quite a while to do.  It also probably looked extremely weird so no pictures of that!!!

Water Blobs – Do they Work?

The promise of the water blob is that you have this bouncy bed of water that kids can frolic and flop around on and in every picture I have seen on Pinterest there are multiple kids all bouncing and playing together on the water blob.  This is where our water blob really failed.

This is what our water blob looked like after Allison had been playing on it for only 5 minutes.  Her tiny 4 year old feet had created all of these scuff marks in the plastic.  Only minutes after that she accidentally stuck her fingers through one of these scuffs creating a big hole in the top of the water blob.

Luckily I had Duck Tape nearby and was able to patch up the hole before all the water came rushing out.

The next thing that happened was that tiny pin prick holes starting cropping up at the seams and under the water blob.  I used the duck tape to patch these up too but eventually gave up – there were too many.

This is what the water blob looked like after 15 minutes of play with one small 4 year old. This is when we knew that our Arendelle Ice Pond Frozen Party Activity station was going to have to be scrapped.  There is no way this water blob was going to withstand multiple kids jumping and running on it.

Another thing that wasn’t clear from all the Pinterest Pins we saw – this is definitely a wet, swim suit required activity.  After playing on it Allison was soaked.  Water leaches through the plastic and leaks onto the blob from the pin prick holes around the seams.

So do Water Blobs work?  Ummm … sort of?  For one or two small children this would be a fun hour or so of play.  Maybe.  As long as you are standing there with duck tape to patch up the holes as they crop up.  But for a whole group of kids or a couple of older kids – no way!  The seams would inevitably burst and all that water would come rushing out in short order.

Are Water Blobs Fun?

Yes – water blobs are fun.  Allison loved it.  Nancy and I tried it and it was very relaxing bobbing up and down on the water (like those water beds from the 80’s)  If we were having a water party we might try this again, but we really don’t think it would stand up to multiple kids jumping on it.  And definitely spend the extra money and get the thicker plastic sheeting.  Our 3.5 mil plastic sheet was $10 but if we try this again we are gong to spend the $20 and get the 6 mil plastic sheet.