Ribbon Pulling Spice Bottle with Bells – Christmas Busy Bags

This Christmas busy bag is one of the most popular with my kids.

It features a pulling of the ribbons with jingle bells on the ends!

I originally made this one in one spice bottle with bells on either end. This was great and the kids excitedly played with it but when the ribbons were all pulled out they tried to put it back into the bottle. The lid is a bit hard to open for the kids so this ended their play.

As is usual for me I wanted to improve this and give more play time with this Christmas busy bag.

So I got another spice bottle, cut it in half so I had two of the top sections. I had to use my husbands saw to cut the spice bottle enough to get my scissors in there but it turned out great.

To make you will need:

• 2 spice bottles with largish holes (or other container)
• a few lengths of thin ribbon in various colors
• Cutting supplies, a saw (or similar), scissors
• tape supplies, duct tape, washi tape
• various colors of jingle bells

When measuring for the length of your ribbon use the length of your toddlers arm, because that is as far as they can pull.

I then used duct tape to hold the two tops together. Now this is rather ugly. Enter in washi tape!!

Tape up the middle and make it pretty.

Thread the ribbon from the bottom up of the lid and attach the bells. I choose a bunch of different colors to make it interesting. Once the one lid is threaded pull the un-belled ribbon through the tube of the bottle and thread the next lid. Secure the lids to the spice bottles.

Now your new busy bag toy is ready for playing!

My 2 year old was more than happy with this altered version, which occupied for sure way longer than the one sided bottle!

I even caught my 4 year old helping himself to this toy! I found him sitting on the little mat I have in the kitchen pulling the ends in amusement. 

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