3-D Magic Sand

Have you heard of Art Supplies Direct?  I recently started talking with them about all their wonderful kid craft supplies.  They have a wide variety of children's art supplies and a great teacher resource category.  I became familiar with the company while writing my Children's Craft Column for the Examiner.com.

I love their philosophy; "Artists are nothing without a medium. Many will go without to make sure they can get just the right tube of paint or higher quality clay to work with. We simply make it easier and more affordable by offering the highest quality artist supplies at wholesale pricing. This means our customers can stock up on artists supplies without sacrificing quality." 

Art Supplies Direct passion for art extends to young children and their teachers; "From elementary classrooms where creativity blossoms to college campuses where students pursue artistic careers, teachers are the backbone of the profession. To make sure they have the artist supplies they need to foster growth in their students, we carry a variety of items just for them. Teachers will find art supplies for kids, classroom equipment, learning games and more within our inventory."

I was excited when they sent me 3-D Magic Sand to try with my children.  3-D Magic Sand comes with six different colored sands all in their own individual 9 ounce zip-lock bags.  To me this craft just screamed sandbox.  We did a trial run inside on my kitchen island but we quickly ended up outside; sand in the house, silly me.  What is nice about this craft is that it comes with quite a bit of sand so even though we did some of it inside there is still plenty of sand left over for them to have fun in their sandbox and maybe even at the beach.

Items that you should have on hand before beginning this craft:
Small Disposable Plastic Cups
Plastic Spoons
Water
Sand Toy Molds

Instructions:

Pour some of the sand (I placed about half) into a plastic cup.  Place several drops of water onto the sand and mix.  The sand should not have too much water but should be vibrant in color and sticking together.  The directions indicate 15 parts of sand to 1 part of water.  You are basically looking for the type of sand you would use at the beach to make a sand castle.

Using the plastic spoon scoop the sand into the center of the beach toy molds.  Press the sand into the molds with the back of the spoon or your fingers.  Children can layer the sand with different colors, use the same color, or mix two colors together!

Turn the molds over in the sand on the beach, in their sandbox, or onto of a paper plate.  Let the sand dry for 48 hours for a hard sand shape.  We allowed our sand to dry outside for several days.  However, it is just sand so if it comes in contact with water or humidity it will start to dissolve.  Really the fun for us was not the hardened sand but creating the wonderful colorful shapes.  If you are traveling to the beach you can either leave your colorful sand creation for the next child to enjoy or bring some paper plates to take you masterpiece home.

To order 3-D Magic Sand visit Art Supplies Direct. 
I would love to see pictures of your children's sand creations!  Please email at sarahforhan@sarahforhan.com with the pictures and I will post them on my blog. 

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