Sensory Bottles and Rainbows

      My sons favorite toys right now are an empty Pepsi bottle and a pocket mirror. Maybe if I'm lucky he'll grow to be an inexpensive 1920s ragamuffin rolling a hoop down the road with a stick, but something tells me he'll be more like his dad and be nuts about technology. The Pepsi bottle got me thinking about some sensory bottles I had seen a while back and figured now would be a great time to make him some while he's enjoying the simpler things in life.
  
       We took a little family trip to the Dollar Tree to get some little things to use for the bottles and found some great stuff! They had little bags of plastic frogs, lizards, bugs, pom pom balls, confetti, Mickey Mouse and Monsters Inc figurines, plastic alaphabet letters, beads, the options are amazing. I call that a "Dollar Store Score!" Here's what I did with my Friday night...

 When making sensory bottles here are some things to keep in mind...

1. Will this bottle be too big or heavy for my child?  The first bottle I filled with water and all sorts of colorful things to look at. I absolutely love this bottle but realized this is too heavy for him to lift. He will have to just push it around on the floor. Another concern I have about this bottle is if it's standing upright and falls over into his ankle or shin how that is going to feel. I'll have to monitor him with this one because it is a bigger bottle and heavy.

2. Will these objects fit inside the hole of the bottle? Some of these things I didn't check so I ended up having to cut the spikes off the back of the stegosaurus to get him to fit. Poor Spikey.

3. If this bottle is for the car, how much damage would it do if it were to become a projectile in the event of a crash?  Heaven forbid anyone ever crash their car but it unfortunately happens. I wanted to have a bottle for the car and/or diaper bag and I knew I couldn't put a lot of weight in it for this reason.

4. Though super glue sometimes seems like the best way to seal something closed, a hot glue gun is going to be your best bet in this case. Seal it really well so it wont leak or come unsealed and baby wont get to the little things inside.

Here we go...



   I like to call this one "Party In a Bottle" because is looks like your birthday puked, scooped it up and put it in a bottle to preserve the awesome memories of the crazy party you had. Here's what's inside...

pom pom balls

plastic alphabet letters

curled ribbon

plastic beads

confetti

shimmer glitter

larger glitter



         I call this the rainbow bottle for obvious reasons. I saw someone do this once and thought it was awesome. Its just crayon shavings in water! How friggin pretty is that?

         I put all the little items in and then filled the bottle about halfway with rainbow rice which is totally optional. You can use plain uncooked white rice, but if you want rainbow rice the directions are at the end of this post. Before putting all the items in the bottle, I took pictures of all the items in groups on different patterned scrapbook papers. That way I can laminate them and keep them as "challenge sheets" when baby C gets older. Here's an example of the challenge sheets...

     For the car and diaper bag I made a baby version of the I spy bottle...

          Its pretty much like the I Spy bottle but with a lot less rice so the objects are a lot easier to see. The bottle is also smaller so its easier to pick up and baby C likes to shake it like a rattle. Inside I used...

Plastic animals

curled ribbon

glitter

plastic alphabet letters

foam shapes

beads

pom pom balls

rainbow rice

confetti

     For the bug bottle I wanted it to feel almost like when you were a kid and caught a bug and put it in a bottle with dirt and a leafy twig for its home and you'd just watch it and gave it a name and it was the pet that your mom hated was in the house......... yeah.

     In the bottom I put a little bit of the rainbow rice, some beads, a few real stones, a coin and a silver star. I also put a fake branch in there and just two plastic bugs so they would have room to move around and easily be seen. He actually really likes this one a lot.

I am really happy with the way these turned out. I think they're pretty cute. And baby C likes them too.



         Awwwww He's the perfect blog model! He gets his good looks and charm from his daddy, and any awkwardness he develops later in life will be from me.

Here's the rainbow rice.

I made more than enough rice so I could have some for future projects if I needed it. Here's the "recipe"  I used...

1. For one cup of uncooked rice put 2 Tbp rubbing alcohol and some drops of food coloring in a         ziplock bag.

2. Mix well and then add the rice. Mix by squishing the bag all around with your hands.

3. I wanted to make a lot so I did 3 cups of rice per bag.

4. Lay out paper towels on a flat surface and spread out your rice. 

5. Break it up a bit with your fingers so the air can flow nicely to rice underneath. Don't pack it down.

6. About 15 minutes later break it up again with your fingers.

7. It only takes 30 minutes to an hour to dry.

Tada!!

And now I leave you with a little flashback I feel is appropriate. Just click the link below. 

All this rainbow talk makes me feel like a little kid again