Flower Garden Sensory Bottle

It’s Day 9 of our Sensory Bottle Extravaganza! And today, we’re adding a punch of color with our Flower Garden Sensory Bottle!

“All the flowers of all tomorrows are in the seeds of today.”

– Indian Proverb

One of our favorite things to do during the spring and summer, is to walk around our neighborhood looking at all of the beautiful, and colorful, flowers. So, when I happened upon a bag of bright and colorful plastic flowers, at our local craft store, I knew they would be the perfect ingredient for another sensory bottle.

I loved the flow of our Glittering Shamrocks Sensory Bottle (from Day 1) so much, that I decided I would utilize Elmer’s Washable Clear Glue on this bottle too! That being said, the plastic flowers are a tad heavier than glitter, so I ended up adding an additional ingredient, to keep the flowers suspended in the bottle a touch longer…keep scrolling to find out what I used.

Supplies:

Plastic Bottle with Wide-Mouth (I love using Voss water bottles)
Elmer’s Washable Clear Glue
Hot Water (the hottest water from your tap)
Plastic Flowers
Secret Ingredient: Hair Gel (optional)

Instructions:

Empty the plastic bottle (if it contained a non-water beverage, rinse out the bottle). Remove all labels from the bottle. If you have a hard time getting the sticky residue off, Goo Gone works wonders. I find that if I take my time and peel slowly, I can get the Voss labels off without any fuss.
Fill approximately 20% of the bottle with the clear glue. Add a hefty amount of the plastic flowers.
Next, add the hot water. Do not fill the bottle all the way up, at this point in time. Give yourself a decent amount of space to assess whether you want to add more glue (to make things move slower), more flowers, or more water (to make things flow faster).
Cap the bottle and shake vigorously, until all of the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. Take a minute to watch how the bottle behaves, before deciding how to fill the remainder of the bottle.
Fill the last bit of the bottle with your ingredient of choice (I typically like to fill my bottles to the brim). *Note: When I tested my bottle, I decided that I wanted my flowers to move a bit slower, so I actually ended up adding a hefty squirt of hair gel (that I had leftover from my Minion Sensory Bottle).
Cap the bottle and give it another vigorous shake.
If you’re happy with the results, let the bottle sit (uncapped) until the contents reach room temperature. Then, add a dab of hot glue around the inside of the cap, and quickly seal the bottle (you don’t want your child unscrewing a bottle full of glue and hair gel, inside your house). 🙂

This sensory bottle makes for a perfect calm down activity – it is truly eye-catching and mesmerizing. It really makes you stop and smell the roses…so to speak. 🙂