Spending an afternoon making a sand art bottle with your children is a meaningful parent-child activity, and your creations can last for years to come. If you have a creative idea, use the empty glass bottle as a color palette and create boldly!

Use Ready-Made Colored Sand

Each colored sand art bottle is unique. In addition to colored sand, you also need to buy:

• Glass bottle
• Funnel
• Paintbrush or ladle
• Small plant

Use a funnel, or roll paper into a cone to act as a funnel. When filled with sand, the funnel rotates sideways to create an undulating layering.

• It is most convenient to use a funnel. One of the charms of the art of sand mining is that you can start over if you make a mistake.
• Insert the handle of a paintbrush or ladle into the jar and adjust the colored sand to the desired position.

Add small objects, such as stones, small plants, branches, etc. It is a common practice to lay stones at the bottom of the bottle. The rhizomes of small plants can be seen at the bottom of the bottle through the gaps in the stones.

• You can put a small glass bottle inside the glass bottle, with a layer of sand in the middle, and place other small objects inside the small glass.

Seal the cork of the glass bottle with a hot glue gun.

• Hot glue will prevent sand from spreading when the glass bottle falls over.

Use Sugar and Food Coloring

Prepare materials and determine the amount according to the size of the bottle:

• Sugar
  Food coloring
  Glass bottle with cork
  Bowl
  Ladle
  Hot melt glue gun

Pour sugar into the bowl. Use different bowls to make colored candies of different colors. Pour in a little more sugar and you can make desserts if you don’t use up all the sugar.

• Add a few drops of food coloring and stir with a long spoon. Pigment should be added gradually in small amounts to avoid the color becoming too dark all at once. Stir evenly.
• Use different bowls for different colors.
• Mix colors to create new colors: add red to yellow to get orange; add blue to yellow to get green; add red to blue to get purple.
• It is also possible to modulate double gradient colors.

After the food coloring is dissolved in the sugar, it is kneaded with your hands to further create a uniform and fine texture.

Different materials are suitable for making colored sand glass bottles of different sizes. Filling is best with a funnel, but you can also roll paper into a cone instead.

• A thick straw can also be used in place of a funnel. Remember to use the handle of a ladle to adjust the layers of colored sand at any time.
• Continuously tilt the glass bottle and change the angle to create a unique colored sand texture.

Seal the cork with a hot glue gun and let dry for 5 minutes.

• Be careful because the hot melt glue will burn your hands.

Use Ordinary Sand and Colored Glue

The colored sand produced in this way is more colorful than the colored sand made with sugar. Colored sand can be purchased at home improvement stores and pet supply stores. In addition, materials are also needed:

• Bowls of hot water
• Glass bottle
• Florets (optional)

Dissolve colored glue in hot water. Use a bowl for each color. It doesn’t need to be boiled, but it does need to be hot. One minute in the microwave is enough. Each bowl requires 1 to 3 spoons of colored glue.

• If there is no colored glue, tempera paint (mixed with egg yolk and egg white) can be used instead, but tempera paint should be added slowly and no water is needed.

Pour the sand into separate bowls and heat the water. The ratio of hot water to colored glue is 1:3. If the water exceeds this ratio, the sand cannot fully absorb it.

• Mix the colors with a long spoon, or even better if you have a wire whisk. The mixture should be granular and not too wet.

There are two ways to dry colored sand:

• Drain excess water and place on baking paper to dry overnight.
• Or put it in the oven and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes until dry.

Filling.

• Use a funnel to create a layered look. Tilt the bottle to create various textures.
• Use a long, slender object such as the handle of a ladle or the handle of a paintbrush to fine-tune the sand to your desired condition.
• You can place a small glass bottle in the glass bottle with colored sand in the middle. Use water to grow flowers in the small glass bottle, so that it looks like the flowers are planted in the sand.

Tips

• If you want to create a wavy texture, use a bamboo skewer to adjust the sand.
• You can attach appropriate stickers to the colored sand art bottle as a themed party decoration.
• Be careful of a hot glue gun burning your hands.