Discovery Bottles

In preparation for this year’s Christmas list, I stumbled across a post somewhere online stating they were encouraging a “battery free Christmas” for their kids. This got me to thinking how much I love my son’s toys that make zero noise unless he’s banging them against something else (frequent occurrence). Now that he is older, he is quickly learning where the on and off buttons are for all of his noisy toys and has no problem turning things back on after mommy turns them off.

So with that being said, I am now always on the lookout for battery free toys. I have come across various postings for Discovery Bottles on Pinterest, but this one blog came with various examples to try.

LINK

I decided to make these bottles on a Thursday and my Pinning partner in crime asked I bring them over for our MNI (Mom’s Night In) the upcoming weekend. So I had to get busy! To start, I had to find and buy 6 bottles for the project. I wanted a little variety in my bottles so I had 2 diet cokes, 2 Sierra Mists, 1 bottle of water and 1 Sobe. Once I had drank and washed 6 bottles….I was ready for work (did you think I was going to say something about the bathroom?? That too J)

Besides a quick trip to Wal-Mart to collect some basics, a new glue gun, some glitter and buttons, I was all set. Below are the Discovery bottles I created.

1.       Water & Buttons – Good for shaking

2.       Water, Food Coloring and Baby Oil – Shake it up and watch the colored water separate from the oil

3.       Stale Mini Marshmallows – I have no clue how old they were because they were in the original packaging and stale enough they make a great shaker!

4.       Water, Food Coloring and Glitter – Shiny and Pretty J

5.       Pasta Noodles & Colored Pasta Noodles – GREAT for shaking and finding the colors

6.       Water, Food Coloring and Soap – Still can’t get this one quite right (explanation further down)

I made them all Friday night and by Monday, I am down to 4 bottles, the last two are goners.

Directions: To start, you add your ‘ingredients’ to an empty bottle, apply hot glue to the cap, screw back on. Shake & Enjoy.

Seems easy enough. However when liquids are involved, getting a solid seal can be difficult. So apply the cap quickly and with LOTS of pressure!

I found this to be true any time soap was involved. Not sure if it’s the general pressure or what, but I can’t get it to work. I’ve tried twice, no luck.

The pasta bottle was by far my favorite and it was lost within 12 hours of being finished L If you have a toddler, you know how easy it is to lose something.

To dye the pasta, I simply filled a few different bowels with water plus a good amount of food coloring. The more food coloring, the darker the pasta will be. You can adjust as you go. Same with time, the longer they soak, the darker they’ll be. I let them sit somewhere between 30-60 minutes, checking on them ever so often. I then drained each bowl and set the pasta out on paper towels to dry overnight. By morning, they were colorful and dry and ready to be mixed with plain pasta for a nice mix in the bottle.

I plan to remake the pasta and make some more as my son is enjoying the different bottles and mommy enjoys the lack of music, Spanish, ABC songs and counting J I feel like I am limiting his learning by saying that out loud LOL.

Val's Discovery Bottles

Hello - Just adding my 2 ¢ :)

When Val told me about these discovery bottles I immediately wanted photos and I made her bring them to my house. (where the macaroni bottle is apparently still hiding..) Anyway, I knew I had to make them once I saw them.

While we were out shopping together Val pointed out a 6 pack of Voss water bottles. They came in a carrier and were a great size, so I bought them. The pack was $6 so it was basically like buying 6 sodas. Anyway, I made my bottles and I love how they turned out. I did the following bottles

 1) Water & Baby Oil - I colored the water red for some reason so it kinda looks like blood...oops

2) Water & Glitter

3) Water & Buttons

4) Macaroni - I also dyed my pasta so I could be just like Val :)

5) Rice & Random Objects - kinda like an Eye Spy 

6) Beads

Tiffany's Discovery Bottles

Happy Pinning!

Val & Tiffany