Stress: it's something every college student has felt at one time or another. It's unavoidable. It's often hard to destress and calm our anxieties on a "college budget" because we can't always afford to go out and buy a milkshake during our study break (milkshakes fix everything).
Next time you're stressed, try these DIYs for stress balls and calming jars that are budget-friendly and super fun to make!
Calming Jars
Calming jars are supposed to help calm anxiety. They do this by distracting you and forcing you to focus on something else. They're also super cute, so that's a plus. The simple steps (inspired by an Instructables article) below will help you create your very own calming jar(s).
Supplies
1 Mason Jar of any size
Hot Water
Clear Glue
Glitter
Food Coloring (optional)
Step 1
First, pour 1 cup of hot water (hot water from the faucet works perfectly) into the mason jar of your choosing.
Next, add the clear glue* to the mason jar. Start with 2 tablespoons of glue and then go from there. The more glue you add, the slower your glitter will fall, so go all out. I ended up using a little over half of the bottle.
*You can also substitute glitter glue for the clear glue to have even more glitter in your jar.
Step 2
Next, you're going to add your choice of glitter* to the jar. Feel free to use as much glitter as you want. Make it your own. I ended up adding all of the glitter I bought because, I'm going, to be honest, I love glitter more than life.
*I would recommend using a fine glitter first. After that, if you want to add "chunky" glitter, you can. The fine glitter falls for a longer period than the chunky glitter.
Step 3
Fill the jar full of hot water. Make sure that you leave about an inch of room at the top so that you can shake it. There will most likely be bubbles at the very top because of the glue.
You should try to refrain from trying to blow the bubbles to get them to go away because I did that and let's just say I'm still picking glitter out of my hair.
You can also add more glue here if you discover that you want to have your glitter fall even slower.
If you want your water to have color to it (besides the glitter, obviously), you can add a few drops of food coloring during this step, as well. This is optional, and I chose to opt out of it because I used a lot of glitter.
Step 4
Finally, screw your lid on and give your calming jar a shake. You can now enjoy your calming jar whenever you'd like.
Stress Balls
When I get stressed, I become super tense. Having a stress ball around to squeeze on and release that tension is an amazing thing. If you get stressed and tense too, check out these simple steps (inspired by a Nifty article) to make your very own stress ball.
Supplies
2 Cups Cornstarch
1 Cup Warm Water
Medium Sized Bowl
Spoon
Food Coloring
Ladle
Water Bottle
6 Balloons
Step 1
To start, pour 2 cups of cornstarch and 1 cup of warm water to your medium sized bowl.
Step 2
Stir the cornstarch and warm water combination together. You'll know that you're done stirring when it is easy to stir the mixture slowly, but very difficult to stir it quickly.
You may have to add a little more warm water to your mixture in order to get the correct consistency or to make the end product a little less dense.
I ended up adding about 1/3 cup more warm water because I wanted it to be easier to squeeze and because the overall consistency was just a little too solid.
Step 3
Add food coloring* to the cornstarch and warm water. This will cause the color to pop out when you squeeze on your final product.
*This is an optional step. I decided to add food coloring so that my end product would be St. Ambrose colors.
Step 4
Using your ladle, spoon your mixture into a water bottle.
Step 5
Next, attach the end of your balloon* to the end of the water bottle. Squeeze the mixture into the balloon, making sure to try to avoid squeezing air in with the mixture.
You can fill the balloon as full as you'd like; but you should also keep in mind that the bigger the balloon when it's full, the harder it will be to tie (and the more likely it will be to break *sad face*).
I filled my balloon with about 1 cup to 1 1/4 cups of the mixture.
*I chose to use white balloons because I wanted my coloring to be more prominent. You can use any color or style of the balloon that you'd like to.
Step 6
Finally, take the end of your balloon off of the water bottle and tie off the end of the balloon. Take the second balloon and cut off the end. The second balloon should go over the first balloon to increase the durability of your stress ball.
I found that this stress ball "recipe" makes about 3 decent sized stress balls, so repeat steps 5-6 until you've used up all of your mixture!
Just by following the steps to make these stress balls and calming jars, I've already felt my stress level go down. Hopefully, these DIYs can help you de-stress for all of your semesters to come.