Time out stool Tutorial

So I saw this timeout stool on Pinterest and I really wanted it but since I'm poor and I didn't want to pay $70 and who knows what for shipping I thought to myself "I can make that"!  All the materials cost under $25 to make.  The only thing you may need to worry about is that the plastic bottles are not very durable so if they get dented I'm not really sure how you would pop them back out?

Made this bad boy this weekend and all the materials cost under $25!  It ended up being 14" high and 12" wide.

You will need: (2) empty clear soda bottles, (2) 12" wood or MDF circles (I found mine at Lowe's), (3) 14" legs (We trimmed the long end down so they were 12" long), (1) 2" wood doll head (I found mine at my local craft store), spray paint, washer (make sure it fits the top of your bottle), CLEAR silicone sealant, and optional clear spray paint (for a shiny finish).

First we routed the edges of the MDF circle so the edges of the circle wouldn't be as sharp for our boy when he sits on it.  This is an optional step though if you don't have a router it is not essential.

Drill a hole through the center of the wood doll head.  Hopefully it has a predrilled tiny hole in the center so it will guide your drill bit, if not I would recommend doing that first.  

Make sure the bit you use cuts a hole big enough for the top of the soda bottles to fit in.  We used a 1'' bit but then had to sand out the inside a little so it fit on easier.  This is what your wood doll head piece should look like when your done.

We also used a router to indent a circle into the MDF circle so the soda bottle would sit  could butt up against the edges and fit nice and snug.  Again this is optional if you don't have a router but it just insures no salt will leak out.

After we had cut circles and legs of the timer to a size we wanted we had to measure the height the hour glass needed to be and cut the soda bottles.  Don't forget to incorporate the routed indent in the MDF circle and the height of the wood doll head in your measurement.  Always measure twice so you only have to cut once. (We learned that the hard way!)

Here is our beautifully spray painted wood pieces.  Make sure you do a couple of coats.

We made an 8'' equilateral triangle out of a piece of paper to mark spots for the wooden legs.  It makes sure they are evenly distributed.  Then we predrilled holes for the screws so there is less of a chance of splitting your wood and the screws go in strait.

We also used a this drill piece, I have no idea what its called, to  cut out a cone shaped piece in the MDF circle so the screw head will sit flush with the top of the circle and not poke out.  

Instead of using the equilateral triangle again we put the two circles together and drilled all the way through them to make sure both circle had evenly distributed holes for the legs to be drilled into.

We also drilled holes into the top and bottom of the wooden legs to make sure they were screwed into correctly

We "dry fit" our pieces together to make sure everything fit before glueing or screwing 

We used a clear silicone to attach our soda bottle to the MDF circle.  It goes on white then dries clear so you know when its dry.

Before you glue on your washer play around with how long you want your sand timer to be.  You might need to drill drill a bigger hole into the top of the washer like us to make sure you have the right amount of sand in your timer and enough sand to make it aesthetically pleasing.  We glued the washer onto the soda bottle top using E6000 glue.

After getting our timer down we added salt, instead of sand because we liked how it was white, to the soda bottle on the side without the washer.

Add your clear silicone to one soda bottle

Then add it to the other side

And attach your wooden doll head and the two sides together.  Make sure that all the edges are completely sealed because you don't want any sand to get out.

Add wood filler on top of your recessed screws and scrape the excess off with a credit card to make sure its flat.  If you need to sand the wood filler down a little bit you can after it has dried. And then add one more coat of spray paint on top.  You can also do a clear coat of spray paint or some polyurethane to give it a nice shiny finish.

One cute boy who I think likes his timeout stool too much ...