Magnetic Recycled Zen Sand Table

In this Instructables, you will learn how to make a Zen sand table made with recycled plastic materials. This makes a great tabletop decoration and has 5 areas to play with using magnetism. Kids will love it!

• 4 Plastic bottles (I used ICE soda bottles)
• Plastic boxes (I used a big Ferrero Rocher chocolate box from Costco, feel free to replace with another box)
• Plastic strawsPlastic sheets (I cut a flat piece from a plastic cookie box)
• 1mm Thick self-adhesive cork sheets 8”x11” (matching or bigger than the size of your plastic box)
• Iron filings
• Magnetic ferrofluid
• Craft sticks (rods as well as popsicle sticks)
• Other Zen elements: driftwood and pebbles from the beach, sand (white, regular or other colors)
• Magnets of different sizes

To make supporting legs for the Zen tray, first cut the plastic bottle from 4.5” from bottom up. This will be the height of Zen tray and you can feel free to adjust as needed.

Now, we are going to make the lid/cover for each leg. Draw a circle slightly larger than the size of bottle opening on a plastic sheet. Repeat 4 times and cut. This will be part of the mold.

Next, cut 4 sections of equal height from each plastic bottle. Lay a plastic circle on each.

Use hot glue to seal the connection between the mold parts.

Add resin mix with any decorations you want. I added some iron filings for magnetism and for the look. Wait for it to cure.

Once cured, remove the plastic bottle mold by cutting open and peeling off the plastic bottle sections, then take off the circle plastic sheet.

Now for the fun part! We will introduce different elements to each supporting leg. You can add seasonal flavors or nature elements. For us, we first added black rocks to each supporting bottle, then used a different pattern for every leg:

For the first leg, we used ferrofluid to make a beautiful spiky shape with magnetism.

For the second leg, we used white sand mixed with iron filings, plus driftwood. With a magnet, you can reveal the “dark” sand (iron filings) out of the apparently white sand!

For the third leg, we used simple iron filings, just for the fun of magnetism.

For the last leg, we used oil and iron filings. The fluid dynamic is quite amazing!

Cut the one inch off the two tips of the popsicle sticks. Split each tip into two “teeth”. Make six such “tooth”. Glue one of the remaining middle sections (of popsicle stick) to a 6” rod as shown. Next, glue on the “teeth” one by one, and finally glue on the other middle section of the popsicle stick to secure the “teeth”. This makes a Zen rake.

Use another middle section of the popsicle stick (or a small rectangle wood strip) and glue to another 6” rod to make it a smoothening shovel. 

Stack button magnets, preferably of equal size. Put them into a straw and secure the top with tape. Wrap leftover cork strips from the cork sheet around the straw. This is our magic magnetic wand!

Cut the self-adhesive cork sheet to fit the size of the top cover of plastic box to be used for Zen tray. Carefully stick the cork sheet to the top of plastic box. This optional step covers the logo and give it more natural feel.

Pour iron filings to the Zen tray, optionally add other Zen elements.

To set up, simply arrange the supporting leg to the 4 corners of the Zen tray. You can use double sided tape to secure.

To play, you can put magnet in a plastic box then stick the plastic box to the bottom of the Zen tray. Move the magnet around and have fun with your Zen tool to rake, shovel, and draw.

You can also play with each supporting leg.