Activities & Days Out / 25 January, 2023 / Nanny Anita

Turn Old Plastic Bottle into a DIY Bowling Game

Last year I started decorating some water bottles to use in a DIY bowling game.  For some reason I put them to away and forgot about them!  A few weeks ago I remembered I had them.  When I had originally made them I left 2 of the bottles for my charges to decorate.  Before I set it up we had to get the paint out to do some decorating.  My youngest charge decided that she was going to decorate her bottle before I had even asked if she wanted to.  She actually wanted to do both bottles and got rather annoyed when I told her the other one was for her brother.

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To make your own DIY bowling game you will need:

• 6 2-litre bottles
• Acrylic Paint
• Paintbrush
• Ball

When you paint your bottles you need to use thick paint.  I originally applied 2/3 layers of a base coat before I painted on my design. They have actually lasted really well.

When my charged painted her bottle it dried quickly so we didn’t have to wait too long before we could play.  The moment we started to use it the paint flaked off.  All the other bottles that had been previously painted held up really well and didn’t chip at all.  If you want the paint to stay I would paint the bottles with a base colour first.

This was such a fun game for us to play and when my eldest charge came home from school he was desperate to play instead of doing his homework.  Thankfully he got his homework done really quickly so could get a few goes in before dinner.

I set the first game up and then after that I let them put the bottles back into place if they knocked it over. I think they found that part just as fun as trying to hit them over.  We played the game inside, but this is a perfect game to take outside.  Although you will need to weight them down with rice or water to make them slightly heavier and therefore less likely to be blown over.

This game is easily adapted for different age ranges.  For younger children they can literally just try to knock the bottles over. For older children you could assign points to each bottle or make it harder by adding more weight to the bottle.

This is a  great game for those long summer holidays that are getting ever closer.