Ocean In A Bottle

We are back with sharing the Kid's Co-op this week, as we took a little break last week for our Canada Day crafts and recipes :) But first, I would like to share a craft that we made :)

While browsing around the internet a little while ago, I found this great Ocean in a bottle craft at Mama's Little Muse. I loved it and couldn't wait to have Sammie help me make one :)

We gathered some shells that I had bought at a dollar store, some sand from our sandbox, vegetable oil and an empty bottle. I used a Gatorade bottle as our ocean because it had the biggest opening. I really wish I could have found a smooth sided bottle with a large opening, I think it would have made it easier to see the ocean.

We filled the bottle about 2/3s full and added some blue food colouring. Sammie put way too much colouring in the water, so I had to keep dumping it out and adding more water until the water was coloured, but still clear. I would probably only use 1-2 drops of food colouring if we do this again.

Then Sammie picked out the shells that she liked best and added them to the bottle. We tried to add sand to our bottle, but it didn't workout. All the sand did was cloud the water so you couldn't see anything :( I was a bit disappointed, as I thought the sand would be really neat in our ocean bottle.
Once I got all of the sand removed from the water (I ended up dumping the water out and rinsing until I got all the sand out and then added more and coloured it again), we filled the bottle the rest of the way with the vegetable oil.
Then I sealed the lid shut with some hot glue around the bottom of the lid.

And there is our ocean in a bottle :)

This was fun to make and so much fun to make and watch the waves moving in the bottle :) Austin really likes to shake it up lol

If you like this post, please join us at our Facebook page, for lots more fun crafts and ideas :) And if you make an ocean in a bottle, we would love it if you share a picture of your ocean with us on our Facebook page :)

And now for this week's Kid's Co-Op link up. Please be sure to check out some of these great crafts, activities and ideas. If you have some of your own crafts , activities or ideas, please link them up :)