Tuesday 9 October 2018

We made our own squishy characters with Smooshins!

My youngest loves to collect little figures. Shopkins, Num Noms, Tsum Tsum's and Squishies she has them all. What she has never done is make her own though. When the chance to try out the Smooshins Surprise Maker Kit I jumped at the chance! 

Smooshins are a unique new toy range that brings the surprise and anticipation of “unboxing” to a whole new level with an exciting arts and crafts twist for endless smooshy fun.

Smooshins box.

The Smooshins Surprise Maker Kit has everything you need to get your very own Smooshins collection started! Just pop one of the included colour pouches, squeeze it into the Surprise Maker and fasten the locking mechanism, and after 4 hours your maker will light up to tell you your Smooshin is ready to be revealed!

The Surprise Maker Kit includes 2 surprise character moulds, 4 colour pouches, 4 head pieces, 4 face pieces, 4 belly pieces, 4 character stands, and 1 pouch squeezing tool. Requires 3 x AAA batteries (not included). For best results leave overnight. For ages 7+.

This sounded like so much fun. Ellie couldn't wait to get started. We had a look at a couple of instruction videos on Youtube just to be sure we knew what we were doing.

The contents of the Smooshins box.

I admit the first one Ellie tried didn't work out. We just couldn't get it into the Surprise Maker in time. It just wasn't having it. It was 2nd time lucky though. My teen also had a go at making one.

To make your own squishy character you need to:

Step 1: POP - You will need to firmly pound the colour pouch with the side of your fist to ''pop'' the inner colour inside the pouch. 

When they say firmly pound they actually mean hit it has hard as you can with something hard. We tried pressing it, hitting it with our fists, elbows and Ellie even tried using the Surprise Maker to hit it. Eek! I ended up hitting it with a hairbrush. Becky had the same problem and struggled to pop the colour pouch. The first one she tried she ended up stabbing a hole in with the tool you use in step 3 and her 2nd attempt she used a jar to smash it. 


Step 2: MIX - Once the inner colour pouch is popped, you will have 1 minute and 30 seconds to mix the colour with the clear portion (set your timer!). Quickly pedal, swivel, swirl, and twist the pouch to get the colour completely and thoroughly mixed.

mixing the colour pouch

This part was a lot of fun but stressful at the same time. You don't realise how short a minute and a half is until you are under pressure. You have to fully mix the colour into the white/clear mix and the girls did a great job with this. Twisting and pressing works. I finished Ellie's last little bit off before we moved onto the next step.

Step 3: SQUEEZE - Once you insert and lock the colour pouch into the Surprise Maker, you must work QUICKLY! You will have 30 seconds to squeeze the contents of the colour pouch into the Surprise Maker to avoid the mixture from starting to form/harden in the pouch.


This is where we went wrong with the first try. We just took too long and struggled to get the pouch locked in, in time. We learned from our mistakes and had a bit of a fiddly time getting Ellie's pouch in but Becky my teen did a little better and she found it easier. You put the pouch into the surprise maker, twist it and it locks into place. You then press the bow hear a sucking noise and then you press, squeeze and roll the pouch until all the mixture is in the mould. The tool comes in handy for this to roll it in.

Step 4: GROW - Leave the pouch in the Surprise Maker and wait 4 hours. Do not open the Surprise Maker to disrupt the magic! Then, turn the pouch counterclockwise to unlock and pull firmly to remove and immediately discard the used pouch. Remove the mould from the Surprise Maker and leave the character inside the mould overnight to grow. You can then begin the second mould while you wait for the first one to grow.

putting the colour pouch into the surprise maker

We were planning to make a couple in one go but we soon found out that you have to leave the colour pouch and the mould in the Surprise Maker for four hours. To make all four it would take 16 hours at least and then having to leave them overnight means that this kit isn't a quick activity. The Surprise Maker slowly flashes blue when your character is growing and when it goes red you can open it.

Smooshins must be left for four hours as a minimum but ideally overnight for the best results! We did just that and opened them the following afternoon.


It was a little fiddly to open the shell but once that was done opening the mould was easy using the tool you used to squeeze the mixture into the mould in step 3.

As soon as we opened them we could see they hadn't worked properly which was a shame.

the open mould and the  Smooshins

Ellie's the orange one had been made first a good four hours before Becky's the pink one but was a lot more gooier. The pink one was missing the lower half of it's body. Oops.

From reading the instructions it turns our we must not have mixed the colour pouch correctly and that is why the orange one was gooey. We tried our best!

With this set it is impossible to see if the mixture is going into the mould correctly and obviously with the pink one it didn't.

We added the accessories where we could and they did look very cute but the orange one had to go into the bin. Ellie did however claim the pink one.

There are six different characters that you could get. Puppy, Kitty, Bunny, Pony, Twin Kitties or Bear and there are different headpieces, bellies, faces and colours which means there are over 10,000 different design combinations possible. 

the finished Smooshins

I'd say this is aimed at 7 to 12 year old's but they would struggle to successfully make it themselves. My 16 year old struggled and she is quite capable of things like this. To make them needs a lot of adult assistance which is fantastic if you want to do something together, for children who like to do things independently this might be a problem. We did have fun with this set. It was time spent together off electronics but it won't be something we will be going out and buying again.

Smooshins is available from Smyths, and all good toy stores for £49.99.


We were sent this free of charge in exchange for this blog post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4 comments :

  1. This is definitely going on the list for Ella for Christmas. She's squishy mad! I was struggling to think of things to get so this post has really helped! Thanks, Kim :) xx

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  2. these look a lot of fun for older girls to create #TriedTested

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  3. It is a shame it didn't fully work out, but looks a lot of fun. Kaz

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  4. Gosh it sounds like it could be pretty frustrating for younger children to use.

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