DIY Cat Paw Squishy Kit, Make 6 Slow-Rising Squishies

If your kid keeps asking you for squishies, this is the box that answers it once. Instead of one more squishy that lasts a week, they make six of their own: about $6 a squishy, a whole afternoon of mixing, filling and pressing, and six toys nobody else has, because they made them.

Six moulds come in the box, four round balls and two cat paws, and everything that goes inside them is already portioned out. Clear gel, ultra-light clay in four colours, glitter, sugar sprinkles, pastel beads, laser stars, tiny cherries and kiwi slices. You spread the gel on the tray, they choose what goes in, it gets mixed, pressed into a mould, sealed with a cable tie or a drop of glue, and that is one finished squishy. No two ever come out the same.

What comes out is genuinely soft and slow-rising. Press a paw flat and it takes its time coming back, which is the whole reason a child keeps picking it up long after the making is over. The clear ones hold their beads like a snow globe and rustle; the gel ones stretch.

Rated 6 years and up by the maker, and we keep that rating: the kit holds small parts and a tube of glue. No batteries, no screen, no sound.