Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Fish Tank Aquarium Fun - Recycled Glass Jar

My three year old daughter and I created this Fish Tank aquarium using Recycled Glass Jar. We created it after seeing these Five little pumpkins made by Polly and her kids on Helping Little Hands Blog. Actually she was inspired by the Mason jar pumpkins made by Emily on Not So Idle Hands.
Decoupaged Glass Jar - Pretend Fish Tank Aquarium

Materials Used:
Wide Glass Jar
Blue Tissue Paper
Gloss-Lustre Mod Podge
Thick Paint Brush
Recycled Styrofoam container to mix up mod podge
Sticko Stickers Pkg-Funky Fish(PS: I got these stickers from Wal-mart)
Light up Bouncy Ball/LED Tea Light

Steps Overview:

Cut the Tissue paper into 1.5 or 2 inches wide strips. Measure the height of the Glass jar and cut the tissue paper strips to that size.


We thinned Mod podge my mixing a small portion of it with water in a Styrofoam container. There is my little one mixing the mod podge. She has great fun in mixing.


Paint Mod podge onto outside of the glass Jar in small sections as shown below


Lay down a strip of tissue paper and smooth it down well. Then, move onto the next section. It may appear wrinkly but it doesn't show up once it's dry.


Keep overlapping tissue papers and continue till you get the whole jar covered. Apply a layer of mod podge around the neck of the bottle and wrap around a strip of tissue paper. Let it dry for 24 hrs. Then brush on a coat or 2 of Mod Podge to give a glossy finish. Let it dry.

Now sticky time. Get your fish stickers out.


I let my daughter to play around. She stuck the fish stickers and bubbles as per her fish Wish:-)


Fish Tank Aquarium is ready!!





Coming to the glowing part. First I made the aquarium to glow by tilting the below electric candle inside the bottle. But it was not kid friendly, just a temporary solution and it was heating up the bottle.





Finally we lighted it up with a Light up Bouncy ball, a kid friendly manner!!







19 comments:

  1. That is really great. I sent it to my daughter-in-law. My grandson will enjoy the fish.

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  2. The "kid friendly" way makes it look like water! Much better anyway :) This is adorable. Thanks for linking up!

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  3. I love this kid friendly project - and with no worries of maintaining real fish! :D Happy New Year!

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  4. This is a project I could do with my craft club at school. We are always collecting glass jars and bottles, and we buy Mod Podge by the gallon. My only negative comment has nothing to do with the project. Just a friendly word of advice: If you're posting something online for others to read, you should do a grammar check. Your opening sentence should read, "I and my three-year old..." not "Myself and my three-year old..."

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  5. Wow! What a great idea to make an aquarium. My kids would love this. Thanks for sharing the link.

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  6. Actually, Anon, it should be, "My three year old and I..." ;)
    I love this project! I'll be doing it with my Daisy Scouts. I have battery operated tea lights that we can use, but I really like the look of the blue light.

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  7. Very fun looking project! Thanks for sharing it.

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  8. Wow! This would make a great night light!

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  9. This is a great project. I love the light inside the aquarium too.

    ....visiting from over at ABC/123 show and tell.

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  10. Oh how adorable! I love it all lit up! I bet your 3yr old was VERY pleased!


    I would LOVE for you to join us at Kids Get Crafty (every Wednesday on Red Ted Art) - current link up http://www.redtedart.com/2011/01/19/kids-get-crafty-penguins-boys-umbrellas-card-board-boxes/
    Hope to see you there!

    Maggy

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  11. Great way to recycle! So fun and so pretty! Kerri

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  12. what a greaT repurposing and getting crafty with kids project!

    thanks for sharing and linking up at our crafty saturday party! can't wait to see what you have in store this week!

    http://tosewwithlove.blogspot.com

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  13. Thanks for the correction anonymous! will take care in future

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  14. :) Very innovative idea.. Can u please add the artsy-craftsy-feb pic (link) here?Just so others can join in too

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  15. How cool is this, thanks for linking in the carnival.

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  16. This is so cool. I am going to save some glass jars to do this!

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  17. LOVE this. Pinned it on my Recycle Board. So pretty.

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