Thunderstorm in a Bottle: Make Your Own Lightning Night Light
While children may hate the thunderous booms that are associated with a good summer thunderstorm, many adults find them calming, relaxing and the perfect time to curl up with a good book. Lightning is a powerful phenomenon and is quite beautiful-when viewed safely from indoors. This fun craft using just a few simple materials will create a lighting storm in a jar that is 100% safe, visually appealing and will have your little ones more curious about those summer storms than nervous.
You will Need:
Plastic Jar
Yellow and Blue Tissue Paper
Glue
Paintbrush (optional)
Cotton Balls
Fairy Lights
First up, you’ll tear the yellow and blue tissue paper into one-inch sized pieces.
You can use scissors but I think the jagged edges are a little more natural looking.
Next, pour some glue into the plastic jar. Less in more here. You don’t really need glue on the bottom of the jar, but it’s not a big deal if you just pour it into the bottom. Then, use your finger or a paintbrush to spread it evenly onto the inside of the jar.
Once the inside of the jar is covered with glue, stick the pieces of tissue paper pieces flat onto the inside of the jar.
Your cotton balls are going to represent clouds. Fluff them up by gently pulling on them in different directions. Glue the cotton balls onto the outside of the bottom of the jar. Use as many or as few as you’d like. My son had fun experimenting with the look of the lights wrapped inside the cotton ball. I almost grabbed the drill to see if we could feed the fairy lights through the bottom of the jar and into the cotton balls but I managed to contain myself…this time!
Wait for all of the glue to dry. Placing the jar on its side will help the air circulate and cause the glue to dry faster. We left ours for a couple of hours.
Turn on the fairy lights and place them into the jar. Our fairy lights have three different settings-constantly on, flickering and slow strobe. My oldest son thought the setting with alternating bulbs flickering was the most realistic. You can also use a flickering, flameless candle in place of the fairy lights.
Put the lid onto the jar, place it upside-down and Voilà! Your very own lightning night light or as I like to call it “Night Lightning!”
