DIY Glitter Meditation Jars

Ivy and her meditation jar

I finally tried out those meditation jars I've been seeing around pinterest, and they are cooler in person than they are in photos. There's something about the swirling water and bits of sparkle that catches even my attention, and I just want to sit and watch it glitter.

I don't know how well it is going to help any of us meditate or calm down, but that is still to be discovered.

 The project itself is very very easy.

Here we see glitter, glitter glue, two cups of water total, and a jar and lid.

But wait. My before photo was optimistic. This will be the mistakes portion of the post.

Mistake 1
My plastic jar had too much give and was not water proof. Please double check to make sure that your jar is water tight, because there is a lot of shaking and moving and holding with this project.

Mistake 2
Your jars don't need to be that big. Bigger is heavier. Bigger means you have to use a lot of glitter and glue. Smaller is just fine, there's plenty of movement in a smaller jar.

Mistake 3
Not every glitter glue is as effective. I used these little tubes of glitter glue from the toy store, and they did not dissolve very well nor did they give enough body to the water to make the glitter swirl, rather than float on the top.  The craft store glue worked immediately, with far less glue. I read one tutorial that said to use 1 Tablespoon glitter glue per cup of water. That worked for the better glue, but not for the other.

Mistake 4
Do not use white glue to give the water the right viscosity. It will immediately work for viscosity, but it will also immediately make the water opaque. There is no purpose in having swirly glitter if you can't see it. I suppose there might be some clear craft glue that would work, but I didn't have any. I read this post (also a fascinating post about teaching the kids meditation) that said to use glycerin and dish soap. That would probably be the best option, but I didn't have any.

 In the end, I used three cheapo glitter glues and two half empty craft glitter glue jars from an old project (it probably would have worked fine with just the craft glitter glue). Use warm water to help the glue dissolve and shake shake shake it up. I also used one and a half vials of extra fine glitter. I basically tossed in every glitter glue I could find that I thought would be close to purple, my original color. Well the original color was gold, as you can see from the before photo, but once I added the white glue, I ruined the whole thing and had to toss it out. So I started over with purple.

One might think that using so many different colors would make the glitter muddy, but I actually found that using the blue, purple, red, and opalescent glitter gave the jar a lot more interest than it would have had if it had just been one color.

 It looks like the starry sky, actually.

 Let's watch it settle.

 Red. Purple. Blue.

 Flash of opal.

 This one takes about three minutes to settle. I read here that if you add more glue, it takes longer. She uses it for time outs, as a tool to help her kids calm down. So if you want a five minute "time out" jar, then you want to get yourself some extra jars of glue so you can fuss with the timing. You can tell from my experience that it could take a bit of experimenting to get it right.

Finish. Are you calm yet? 

When my son came home from school, I realized I was going to have to make him one too. I took the lessons I learned and made him another one. The only color glitter glue I had left that hadn't gone into the purple jar was green, and I used the rest of the blue glitter and another vial of green glitter. And then I added some gold glitter for sparkle. The last improvement was in the jar I chose. I realized smaller works, too, so I picked a fancy olive jar. Which I think turned out amazing, even though it settles far faster. I can add more glue later if I want it to go slower.

He thinks it looks like Snape's potions, and asked if it was for his Harry Potter Birthday coming up in the summer. That's a very good idea, although I might use it for divination. Stare into the globe and try to tell the future. I don't have a picture of him because he just isn't as willing to sit and pose as the girl is.

There are a few different things you could do with this project. I like my son's idea for a Harry Potter project, but it could also be adapted to make a snow globe, because essentially, that is what this is. You'd want far less glitter and something pretty to look at inside the jar and some waterproof glue to seal the lid, but it would work.

All in all, this was a very simple project, once you get past the oopsies and it does kind of make me want to go get some more glitter glue and make one for myself. What can I say, I loves sparkly things. And there are times I sure could use some calming down and a focus for meditation.