Greetings, lovely Iggle Campers!! Gillyweed here, with another craft challenge just for IGGPPCamp! Last year, I posted a new craftastic challenge every day, and this year, I’m doing it again! I decided to go with some simpler crafts this time around, with hopes that more lovely folks join us this year!

We’ve reached the end of camp! How did time go by so fast?!?! A super simple craft to finish these challenges off: Beach in a Bottle!

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What you’ll need:

  1. A clear water bottle
  2. Shells and/or rocks (small enough to fit in to the bottle)
  3. Water
  4. Baby oil
  5. Food coloring of your choice (what color what is at your beach?)
  6. E6000 or hot glue
  7. Sand (This is optional, I use sand for mine, but it’s a lot more trouble)

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If you’re doing sand, add it to your bottle now. Fill about one quarter of the way up with sand. Now comes the trouble – you’re going to need to clean your sand, or else your pretty colored water will get murky and you won’t be able to see through it whenever you move it. To clean your sand, add about a cup of water, shake the bottle, then carefully pour just the water out. Repeat until the water is no longer terribly murky and actually pretty clear. It might be best to do this outside with a hose so you can pour the water out over plants or something.

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Now add your shells! (And or rocks if you chose those.)

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Food coloring is very potent stuff. Because of this, I add one drop of food coloring to a separate bottle of water, and then use that bottle to color my water. Does that make sense? I filled the sand bottle up halfway or so with plain water, then add a bit of the colored water and go from there. I don’t want my water to be too dark.

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Once you’ve filled the bottle to about three-quarters, top it off with baby oil. To the very top. Then use glue to permanently close the bottle and prevent leakage.

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And there you have it! A pretty beach in a bottle! Turning it on its side and rocking back and forth makes the waves.

Extra notes:
Again, this looks cute without the sand too! I just didn’t make that variant this time around.
I attempted this a total of three times. Twice with sand I got from the dollar store, and once with sand I got from Walmart.

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The left is the Walmart sand – I like that one the most. The middle is white Dollar Tree sand. It soaked up most of the blue in the water, so now the sand is a very pale blue. The black Dollar Tree sand was the worst. For some reason, it clings to the bottle. Some of it floats. Overall, I’d recommend going to not dollar store sand. Maybe even heading to the beach! (Or stealing from a sandbox… shhh)

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Here are the three bottles on their sides. You can see the black sand clinging to the bottle in random patches. Grr.

We’re all done! I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s challenge and that you give it a try yourself! If you do, an achievement awaits!! Enter campersgetcrafty6 to get IGGPPCamp Challenge Achievement #6, and please don’t forget to share your pics via twitter and hashtags #IGGPPCamp and #IggleCC!

See you next year! ♥