Our Valentines

Here are the Valentines that we made this year. For the last three years, we have done the recycled crayons into multi-colored hearts and they turn our super cute and they are very well received. But, I was tired of them.
So, this year, my man, Steve Spangler gave us a new idea.
We are giving out Baby Soda Bottle Lava Lamps.

Since the idea of giving out EMPTY Baby Soda Bottles didn't sit well with us, we filled them with SweetTart SweetHearts.

In our family, we make a group valentine and we all help out. I typed and printed the instructions and the quotes. The kids cut, glued, signed and addressed.

Our loves quotes are direct from Albert Einstein.

The first step in making the lava lamp (once the kids get them home tomorrow) is to 3/4 fill the bottle with cheap vegetable oil.

Then fill it the rest of the way with water.
Add the fizzy tabs (if they want to try this again another time, food coloring and alka seltzer will get the same effect).

The bubbles will start forming....Isn't it pretty?

And this is courtesy of Steve Spangler's website:

How does it work?First of all, we know that oil and water do not mix. The molecules of water do not like to mix with the molecules of oil. Even if you try to really shake-up the bottle, the oil breaks up into small little drops, but the oil doesn’t mix with the water. Food coloring only mixes with water. That’s why it does not color the oil. When you poured the water into the soda bottle with the oil, the water sank to the bottom. That’s because water is heavier than oil. Scientists say that the water is more dense than the oil. If oil from a ship spills in the ocean, the oil floats on top of the water. Here’s the surprising part... The Alka-Seltzer tablet (we used fizzy tabs instead of alka seltzer) reacted with the water to make tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. These bubbles attached themselves to the blobs of colored water and cause them to float to the surface. When the bubbles popped, the color blobs sank back to the bottom of the bottle. Now that’s a burst of color!