Frugal Friday: Make your own coloured sand jars

I am sure we all remember these? I used to collect them, i adored making little bottles in different patterns to give to my nan. When she died, we found out she had kept each and every thing her 13 grandchildren had ever made for her. That included all 33 bottles of sand art i had made!

When my kids had a sand pit, i would put some of the sand aside to make this with them. As they grew out of sand pits i found that they still wanted to make their bottles of art. Using my trusty google i set about finding an alternative without buying a bag of sand.

Ingredients needed

Option 1:

• Paper
• Salt
• Coloured chalk
• storage container to make your art. 

Option 2: 

• Paper 
• Food colouring
• Sand
• Storage container to make your art

I use option 1 now but i will give the method for both. 

Method

Option 1:

1. Place a pile of salt onto a sheet of paper. Flatten out into a layer. - The thicker the layer, the moe chalk you will need. If your sand art involves lots of colours, only make a thin layer of salt. 
2. Take a chalk stick colour of your choice and roll over the Salt. Keep rolling until salt is covered. 
3. Tip the coloured salt into the container your art will be in. 
4. Repeat until you have finished your pattern 

Option 2: 

1. Pour sand into a small bowl/cup. 
2. Add food colouring of your choice and stir until sand is covered fully with the colour. 
3. Allow the sand to soak up the colour overnight if you can. 
4. Use in the same way you would in option 1. 

*For this method i used to store the sand in tubs and place a measuring spoon inside to make for easy transfer to the paper when making the jar art. I reused the spoons which come in tubs of oxiclean to keep costs down more*

An additional option is glow in the dark sand. 

Items needed: 

• Paper
• Fluorescent paint 
• Salt
• Storage container for making your art.

Use in the same way as option 2 above. 

Total cost varies depending on where you buy your items and whether you need to buy jars/tubs.