DIY Water Bead Stress Balls

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A super fun and easy activity to do with the kids is making water bead stress balls! If you’re not familiar with water beads, they are little beads that grow when they sit in water. You can use the little balls to play with, use for crafts, use for decoration, etc.

For this project, I needed:
-Water beads: (These are the ones I got from Amazon)
-Standard-sized balloons (I got some similar to these)
-empty water bottle
-bowls to hold the water beads

Step 1: Make the water bead balls… you will pour the little beads in a bowl of water. As they soak in the water, they will grow. Don’t do too many at one time- I promise you that a little goes a very long way! I would start this process a minimum of several hours before you plan to make these. You can make them days in advance if you’d like.

Did I mention that a little goes a long way! ;P We had to make 75 stress balls for a school event, but we still had a TON of water beads left!
These are fun for sensory play- putting your hands in a bowl of water beads is a very cool feeling!

Step 2: Fill a water bottle with water beads. It may take a couple of times to see how far up you should fill the water bottle to fill your balloon. It only took about 1/3 of a water bottle to fill each balloon for us.

Step 3: Blow up the balloon about halfway. Twist the balloon 2-3 times around the neck (where the air goes in) to keep the air in the balloon.

Step 4: Put the opening of the neck over the tip of the water bottle, being careful not to let the air out yet. Make sure the opening is securely around the water bottle’s tip. Flip the water bottle over while untwisting the balloon. The beads will fall into the balloon.

PS- that is not my daughter’s floating head in the background- it’s a fat head 😉

You may have to shake the beads down into the balloon.

Step 5: Carefully, release the tip of the balloon off of the water bottle, and let the air go out slowly. The balloon will deflate around the beads.

Step 6: Tie a knot on the balloon. I tied it twice for extra support.

Step 7: Cut the excess above the knot, but be careful not to cut it too close to the knot to mess it up.

This is what it will look like at the end- they are super fun to make and play with!

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