Sand Art

Fun Craft Project for Multiple Ages

• What: Colored sand in containers
• When: 2 years and up
• Why: Create unique gifts
• Where: Amazon

Over a long holiday weekend, we hit up our favorite tiny winery to replenish our supply. Our kids waited mostly patiently while we sampled and shopped, and somehow we can up with this bargain: If they managed to not break anything or disturb us or others, they would each get a clear empty wine bottle to fill with colored sand.

To be clear, we did not own colored sand. But there’s nothing quite like having your own offspring encourage you to both purchase and consume wine. I have been known to pick my wine based purely on how the bottle looks anyway.

The only issue was having them hound me until I acquired some sand. Then it occurred to me, that with our big trip across two continents to visit family rapidly approaching, small containers of colored sand assembled by the kids would work delightfully well as gifts, and I got my act together.

I ordered a batch of eight different colors of sand online, and a box with red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, white, and black showed up on our doorstep. We didn’t have a pink, which was an oversight on my part, but you work with what you’ve got.

I went shopping to find non breakable tiny containers that could be sealed, and finally stumbled across a batch of glitter mixing vials at the craft store for next to nothing. You can use glass ones as well, particularly with older kids or in cases where you don’t have to trust your luggage to baggage handlers. I think we paid around $3 for a bag of six, so I got three bags, and we settled in at home with our supplies.

I set the sand up at the table and laid out a plastic mat under each kids’ workspace. We made funnels out of paper, and armed them with spoons before turning them loose. They picked sand colors and filled each vial.

If you plan to travel, fill each container as tightly as you can. I tried to do that, but learned I wasn’t entirely successful after we unpacked our vials from checked luggage. The colors has mixed a bit on one side, so though the effect was still not too shabby, it didn’t have the same clear demarcation between layers that it started with.

It worked great, because it didn’t require a high level of skill (only scooping and dumping), and all three of my kids, from age almost four to not quite eight, could produce equally pleasing creations.