Ocean in a Bottle With Moon Jellyfish Pendant

This tiny piece of ocean will remind you of the beauty in nature; with a Moon Jellyfish gliding through the blue waves.
I had meant to do this project for the Rainbow Contest, but I didn't get around to it. This is a simple but beautiful piece of jewelry, but it can also double as a stress reliever. Shaking the jar to produce bubbles and then watching them dissipate can help bring your mind off of your worries. I added an almost transparent Moon Jellyfish to give the jar a focal point and to give you an oceanic friend.

1. Small glass jar with cork
2. Water
3. Baby oil
4. Blue food coloring
5. Small jars for mixing
6. Eye dropper or syringe
7. Shells small enough to fit in your jar
8. Eye Pin
9. A small cured piece of clear silicone OR a transparent rubber pencil grip (it can be a transparent color).
10. Small scissors such as nail or embroidery scissors
11. A small needle
12. Invisible sewing thread OR fishing line

13. Tacky glue or another strong glue.

14. Chain necklace or other necklace material for

To make the ocean, pour a little bit of water into the mixing jar. Add a drop of blue food coloring. Make sure it is thoroughly mixed. Add more water to make the ocean a lighter blue (this is personal preference - it doesn't affect the outcome).
With the eyedropper or syringe, drop some of the blue water in the jar, about a third of the way up (this is also preference).
Rinse out the mixing jar. Pour a little of the baby oil in it. With the eye dropper (rinsing isn't necessary), add baby oil almost to the curve of the bottle or where the bottom of the cork will be.
Now drop in two or three small shells. I am using shells that came from my one trip to the beach so it will remind me of how wonderful it was.

Take the cork and push an eye pin into the top of the cork. This will be the hook for the necklace.
The ocean habitat is ready for the jellyfish.

So, cured clear silicone is the most interesting ingredient in this project. I am using a bit off of a failed silicone mold, but I realize not everyone makes their own silicone molds.
However, many people use silicone for a variety of things. Even if you don't use silicone, you probably know someone who does. They could probably help you out, especially since you only need less than a marbles amount. If you can't find any, silicone tubes run around four to five dollars.
However, another thing you could use are pencil grips. They come in many colors and are rubbery just like the silicone. Dollar stores will carry them sometimes. I am using silicone, but the method will be the same.

Taking a tiny piece of silicone, I begin to cut it into a bell/rounded shape. This will be the bell of the jellyfish. I am making it about the size of a large sewing pin. Try to make the sides slope into a bell shape.

Once you are happy with the shape, cut a very long piece of the invisible thread. Thread the needle, but don't tie it off. Instead, pass the thread through the needle until the needle is about halfway along the length of the thread.

Poke the needle through the bottom of the jellyfish. Pull it through until you have the untied ends of thread hanging out the bottom. These are the jellyfish tentacles. Don't pull the needle all the way through. Instead, poke the needle back through the top of the jellyfish NEAR the spot that it came out of, and pull the thread until it is flush to the top of the head. Don't keep pulling or you will accidentally pull the thread all the way out. Turn the needle around and poke it back up through the bottom of the jellyfish, stopping pulling when you have a small loop of thread not pulled through that will match the original two tentacles.

Do those steps over and over until you have has many tentacles as you want (remember, except for the first two tentacles, every loop of thread is TWO tentacles. Don't overload it).

End with the needle coming up out of the top of the jellyfish. The jellyfish is almost finished!

We saw a little jellyfish that had washed up on the beach while I was there, but that was the only one we saw. It was interesting, though, for someone who had never been to the beach to get to see a jellyfish.

Grab the cork top of the bottle. With the needle still attached to the jellyfish, poke the needle up through the cork from the bottom side. Be careful not to poke the eye pin, just poke the needle alongside the eye pin. Once the needle comes through the top, pull until the jellyfish is as high or low as you want him to be (set him next to the bottle for comparison). You want him somewhere in the middle of the "ocean", so don't pull him too close to the top.

Knot the thread several times through the base of the eye pin or around the base of the eye pin. Once you are satisfied that it is secure (I did three knots), cut off the rest of the thread.

Taking the small scissors, cut open all the little loops that you made for tentacles. Just cut them in the middle of the loop so that they become single tentacles.

Now the jellyfish is ready for his new home.

Put the cork on the bottle, poking the jellyfish into the bottle. You may need to use a toothpick or your small scissors to help you do this. Cork the bottle securely, then grab the glue and dab some glue onto the knots of thread at the top.

Once the glue is dry, thread the pendant onto your necklace.

When you shake your little jar of "ocean" it will make bubbles of blue all around the jellyfish. It is rather fascinating to watch. I will warn you not to wear this with fancy clothing because the cork will absorb some of the oil and it could possibly get on your clothing, but I am planning on wearing this just for casual everyday wear so I am not worried about it.

If a shell gets "stuck" up at the top, just tap or shake the bottle until it comes down. There really shouldn't be a reason to every open the bottle again as the jellyfish is held in place by the string.

Someday I hope to go back to the beach. It was a wonderful time full of beautiful things, and I found tons of little treasures everywhere. I am glad that I could make this pendant to help remind me of when I went, even though sometimes it feels like it couldn't have been real!

I hope you enjoy your little pendant. If you have never gone to a beach and you ever get the opportunity, GO!