My daughter and I had the privilege of learning how to do these in our mommy and me preschool class. At 18 months, she loved it. At 3, my son loves it. And quite frankly, at my age I enjoyed it! This is a fun craft that is simple, and it is a perfect gift for pretty much any occasion! The best part is that the possibilities are endless! You can make a winter scene, a summer or beach theme, a sports theme, pretty much anything you can dream up!
What you need:
- Small, round plastic bottle Sportstastic sports drink bottles. I found mine in Walmart.
- Shark and ocean-themed stickers (if you can find some little shark/fish charms that are light enough to float they would be really cute!)
- Small Shells
- Blue food coloring
- Air-Drying Clay
- Whatever else you want to use to decorate! Some ideas are glitter, small umbrellas, tiny objects like the small sunglasses.
What you do:
- Make sure the bottle is clean and dry.
- Leaving a bit of room at the top, fill the bottle with half lukewarm water and half mineral oil (keep in mind the water will stay on the bottom, so proportion it to how much "sky" and "ocean" you want.)
- Put a drop of blue food coloring in the liquid (only 1, it gets really dark really quick!)
- If you are putting something in the bottle, like a small item or glitter, now is the time to do it!
- Put the cap back on tightly and lightly shake to disperse the color
- Give your kiddo's a chance to marvel over how the water and oil separate, and how the food coloring only changes the color of the water! Depending on their age you can turn this into a science lesson!
- Wrap the air drying clay around the cap/neck of the bottle. This is the "sand" so form it as you would like to see it! But be sure the bottom is flat as this is the base! Also make sure to put enough so that it is sturdy!
- Put a little clump of the clay on the top where there is an indention in the bottle.
- Decorate to your hearts content! Be sure to push the things INTO the clay a bit so that they stay!
- Put aside overnight so it can dry!
