In these times of high stress from COVID19 (Coronavirus), I thought it would be a good time to help you make a project for yourself and your family that will help you possibly reduce your anxiety and stress.

I used a Voss glass water bottle (I recommend plastic though, if you can find it), another large plastic water bottle, a pickle jar I ran through my dishwasher (and it still smelled like pickles, so didn’t use it in the end.) I also had a pint jar and a small plastic spice sized container.  I cleaned all of the bottles and removed the labels.  The pickle jar label fell off in the dishwasher, and the other labels were easily removed, as they were plastic outer liners and could be cut off..

Coloring the water: I used food coloring and Crayola watercolors, so if you don’t have either of these, use anything you have on hand that will change the water color…You might have some liquid blusher that you could use a few drops as well or water based markers that you scribble on a small flat piece of plastic, then swirl the plastic in the bottle to remove the marker..

To thicken the water, you can use Elmers Kid’s Washable school glue, Vegetable glycerin that you’d buy at a pharmacy, or baby oil (I couldn’t find my baby oil.) Or you can go without a thickening agent…I did this with the pom-pom bottle.

The pint jar–I started by putting green food coloring in…not a lot as you don’t want the water too dark…I thought this would work for pompoms, but it didn’t because you need a lot more room for the pompoms to move….so I changed the pompoms to the largest water bottle. I’ll use the pint jar for the next jar idea. I changed the pint jar (still green) to smiley face table scatters, white beads and glitter…choose different colors of glitter and different sizes of glitter..chunky works great. Start by filling the jar about 3/4 full and add glycerin to this jar, adding maybe 1-2 tsp. The more glycerin you put in, the slower the shakers will move. I added more table scatters/sequins shaped like flowers, then shook the jar really well. I used hot water so things would combine easier. After these bottles sit overnight, fill the water to the top, and seal the lid shut with glue, either E6000 or Super Glue. Put the glue inside the rings of the lid and then put the lid on tightly and let it set until it’s glued shut. This is especially important with your glass jars.

Pink (pickle jar)-(in the end, this was the Voss water bottle)– I used Crayola red watercolor on a brush and kept wiping the brush in the water on the side of the jar. Filled it a little more than half of the jar with water. Make sure the water is really hot so the glue dissolves. Fill the jar almost to the top with Elmer’s Clear School Glue or any clear glue. I should have closed the jar and shaken it until the glue and water mixed, but didn’t. I added different glitters, small beads, sequins, table scatters.. Put the lid on tightly and shake it a lot, and I mean a lot, to get the water and glue to combine. If you get bubbles, that’s ok…wait overnight and fill the jar the rest of the way with water and then glue the lid shut and shake it again.

Next day...I couldn’t get the pickle smell to go away, so changed to the Voss water bottle  and it turned out to be my favorite.

Small container that looked like a spice bottle: I used hot water and filled it over half full and then filled it almost the rest of the way with the Elmer’s school glue. I added yellow food coloring and gold and brown glitter and flower sequins and then closed it and shook it really well. The next day, I added more hot water to the top and sealed the bottle shut with glue.

After I added water to the top of each bottle and sealed them, I shook them so you can see how relaxing it is.  I hope you give this a try.

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