There are so many amazing ideas on Pinterest.  And every now and again, I try to be THAT mom and I try out something new and exciting. Well, most times I end up with a major Pinterest Fail – like that time I thought mess-free painting would be fun.

A more recent Pinterest attempt has been SENSORY BOTTLES. You know those super cute activity bottles that have things inside of them for kids to play with. Betcha didn’t know you could screw it up. Leave it to me, to show you how.

Here’s my “How to not build a sensory bottle” brought to you by this week’s #pinterestfail.

PS If your looking for successful Sensory Bottles check out & follow this Pinterest Board dedicated solely to Sensory Bottles. I keep dreaming I’ll try this project successfully again.

Sensory Bottle Gist

Here’s what you need to know about sensory bottles…

Supplies

• Clear Bottle (plastic, glass, tall, short, skinny, reusable, old, cute, ugly)
• Things to put in the bottle (beads, animals, glitter, rocks, string, pipe cleaners – it’s truly endless)
• Glue
• Medium (Optional – to immerse the objects in).

You take an empty bottle & you fill it with stuff… then you give it to your kid to explore.

Theoretically, if you don’t go crazy at the dollar store/craft store – its a great budget friendly activity. It’s even awesome for entertaining curious babies. The noise bottle was awesome for diaper changes (but then the novelty ran off). But, let’s be realistic, this meme says it all

My Experience: Plastic is better

The BEST BOTTLES – in my humble opinion – is Vos Water Bottles. This is fancy Norwegian water imported to North America. However, once you drink your fancy expensive water you are left with a beautiful bottle that is aesthetically perfect for the task at hand. If your obsessive about beautiful things, like myself, you might want to hunt those down for the task at hand.

Voss makes bottles out of glass and out of plastic. I only knew of the glass ones, until I saw the smaller plastic ones in the London Drugs cooler ($2.19 CDN). The plastic ones have easy peel off stickers. The glass ones also have writing on them. My husband removed the label and refuses to tell me the trade secret. (seriously, woke up one morning and there was no label… he insists a magical creature did it in the night). 

Choose Plastic. Why? Glass is nice. It feels good. I looks good. BUT glass is heavy, and babies, even mine, are weak. Trying to shake and interact with a filled glass sensory bottle is bad news day. I had one fall on my foot – and it hurt lots.

You could still choose glass, but keep that in mind. It seemed okay for a 5 year old, and Walter just rolls it around, but from my Pinterest Fail to you, choose Plastic.

My Experience: Don’t Use Soap

Many of the bloggers who have completed this project use some sort of medium to immerse their objects in. This allows the objects to float around in the bottle. Many of the bloggers choose to use Mineral Oil. However, mineral oil (at least in Canada) is kind of expensive.

After shelling out $5 for a bottle of water, I wasn’t going to spend another $20 on baby oil or mineral oil for a sensory bottle. I’m sorry, this was a #getreal moment in my life. I wanted this to be a fun budget-friendly DIY project, not a break the banks moment.

Since mineral oil was a bust, I thought the $1.25 JUG OF CLEAR SOAP might work… it does and it doesn’t.

1. It’s heavy.
2. It’s not truly clear.
3. It gets air bubbles – my husband patiently figured out how to get the air bubbles to settle out. Honestly, I’m not that patient.
4. If your objects aren’t heavy enough they move REALLY SLOWLY. This is not entertaining to child.
5. It might work if… you filled it with heavy stones.

My Experience: Don’t Use Hand Sanitizer

Hand Sanitizer is also another really cheap liquid you can buy at the dollar store! I bought a big jug of it thinking it might work. I had seen a super cool sensory bottle that was built with different layers of things for kids to look at. Well, whatever that blogger used, was much better. Hand sanitizer was another #pinterestfail

1. Too many bubbles!
2. Objects still move around if you shake it
3. It looks terrible.
4. Just don’t do it.
5. Or do it better – and then tag me, and tell me how you did it better.

This was my attempt at a biosphere — kind of like this bottle Preschool Inspirations created

Personally her’s looks WAY BETTER. But maybe its because its blue and sea creatures.

Just make a Shaker Bottle

After my two failed attempts, I decided to just fill a bottle with different beads and make a shaker bottle. This was much more exciting for my child and this bottle has been a big hit!

I also made one of those busy/calming glitter bottles that I shared over on my FB page last week, and well that too was a fail, but more on that another day. 

How to Make A Shaker Bottle

1. But Water Bottle & Beads (different sized beads makes for a nicer noise)
2. Drink Water
3. Let Bottle dry out.
4. Remove bottle stickers.
5. Fill bottle with a beads (I only added maybe 1/2 cup of small and medium sized beads).
6. Close bottle.
7. Give to child.
8. All done.

Have you ever made a sensory bottle? Drop a link if you have and had more success than me! Tell me, what could I do better.