To Make An Hourglass

Hello everyone ✨

Has there ever been a time when you were working on a project on a "no-phone-day" but you still wanted to time yourself?. No-phone-days are necessary from time to time as sometimes, we need a break from looking at our screens. The simple remedy to this dilemma would be an hourglass. Yes?

I got the inspiration to make this hourglass from a picture I saw on the pinterest app. I'm a person who likes to keep track of time and although I have wrist watches, I feel this hourglass is going to come in handy.

The fun part of this hourglass is the fact that it is made solely from waste materials. It can be very satisfying to turn your waste materials into something very useful.

Materials Used.

• Carton
• Plastic bottles
• A pair of scissors
• Cutter
• Glue/gum
• Pencil
• Yarn
• Fine sand

Procedure.

I started by gathering all the necessary materials needed for this craft. All the materials are readily available everywhere, making this craft a bit easier.

I started with the plastic bottles. I chose a plastic bottle that a cylindrical shape so that the flow of the sand would be smooth.

I cut off the top part(mouth) of the bottle and then I went ahead to smoothen the sharp edges with a heat source.

After smoothening the edges, I cut a little circle on another plastic and on this circle, I made a hole. The hole shouldn't be too big so that the sand doesn't gush out.

After that, I went ahead to make the base of the hourglass. For the base, I used cartons. I cut the cartons into circles. I made four circles and joined them in twos. This gave me a somewhat thick base.

With the base out of the way, it was time to make the two handles by the side. The handles must be firm enough incase you want to switch your hourglass to the opposite direction using the handle. I measured the distance between the first base, the two plastics and the last base. This gave me the length of my handle.

Making the handle was the last thing but we aren't done. The final phase was the coupling phase. I started by joining the two cylindrical plastics; not forgetting to add the little circle in the middle. After that, I added the first base.

With the base in position, it was safe to pour in the sand. At this point, I didn't know if it was going to work or not. 'Eager' would be the right word to describe how I felt. After pouring in the sand, I watched as it moved from one point to another. I couldn't be more proud of myself.

When I finished pouring in the sand, I went ahead to cover the top with another carton. The final touch were the handles. With the handles in position, my hourglass was ready and it looked really precious and charming.

With that, I was done with my project. An hourglass to time yourself. Yay! Along the line, I realized that looking at the sand flow through the hole can be really sanative– therapeutic.

I would love to hear you're views on the craft. What do you think about it? Would you like to have such an hourglass on your table?

I made a short that shows the process of making the hourglass. All images used belong to me except stated otherwise.

Love, Wongi