Time Out/Calm Down Bottles

 I have seen this idea a few places, but the main site I used for my instructions was here. The idea is that you make this awesome glitter bottle for your child and you shake it up and hand it to them when they go to time out or just need some relaxing or calming down time and when all the glitter has settled then they are out of time out or ready to come back to being with the family. I have a little one that sometimes has a hard time verbalizing her frustration and gets a bit upset about stuff and I figured this would be perfect. I idea for her was more just that giving her something to distract herself would help her collect herself and calm down until she could handle things more reasonably. I have really liked it so far and it works.

 

Supplies (I made two different ones):

-Plastic bottle (I used a Wal-mart brand sparkling flavored water bottle. The instructions I read used a Smart water bottle)

-Glitter Glue (I could have used more glitter glue for as big of a plastic bottle as I used).

-Goo Gone to remove you bottle label.

-Super glue

-Clear Gel tacky glue (I bought mine in the craft section of Wal-mart)

-Water

-Stirring stick

  

After I Goo Gone-ed our labels off, I filled the bottle half way with hot water. I had read that if you use hot water that is helps the glitter glue mix is better. The girls added their glitter glue. They each used the full bottle, and like I said, we could have used more.

 We filled it closer to the top with more hot water and stirred the glue around to mix it up.

 Added our Tacky Glue. This part of sort of a bit of trial and error. I would add some, put the lid on the bottle, shake it up (yes, it leaked a little since the lid wasn't glued on) and time how long it would take the glitter to settle. I was aiming for about 5 minutes because the seemed about the right amount of time for my daughter to calm down. I later learned that after the bottle is complete and been sitting for a day or so that it thickens just a bit and so mine actually timers longer than 5 minutes now, but it still gets the job done. Once you have added enough to make the glitter settle at whatever time you are going for, make sure your water is to the top and put the lid on. (I think I maybe half a bottle of this tacky glue stuff between my two calm down bottles.)

I used just dollar store super glue to glue the lids on and that has worked perfect. We have dropped the bottle, rolled it, shaken it, etc and there hasn't been any leaking.

 Here is a bad picture of the settled version on the left and the mixed version on the right. More glitter would have been better, but it is still cool.

We discovered they looked super awesome in the sun when they were all shaken up. The girls had fun making them and they serve a good purpose in our house. I consider it a double success.