Stay updated with more tutorials and recipes from Homemade Toast on Facebook and Pinterest! By now, I am sure you have seen these water blobs circulating on Pinterest and all over your favorite blogs. And – for good reason! Water blobs will keep the kids entertained for hours. The only problems that seem pretty universal with the duct tape method is that they take a long time to prep – and they leak within minutes! This tutorial is a little different. I used about 6-inches of duct tape on the entire thing! It has been sitting in our yard for 3 days now – with NO leaks , at all. And – it only took about 20 minutes to get ready! *Update: I just drained our water blob. The grass under it was dying and stinky. 🙁 I’m hoping that it will perk back up in a few days – but I definitely won’t leave it out for more than 2 days next time! I knew there had to be another (better, faster, & easier) way! I had used a similar method in making my own walls-of-water for my tomatoes earlier in the spring, and so I knew right away how I would put together our water blob!

The secret ingredient: an iron

I literally melted the ends of the painter’s plastic together to form a leak-proof seal. I was done before “I Feel Better” started playing on Doc McStuffins. (Someone, please relate!) For those of you without toddler girls, that translates to about 15 minutes.

You’ll need:

Painter’s plastic/plastic sheeting (affiliate link) , *4 mil* – any size (I used a 10×25-foot roll, and cut it down to about 10×20)

, – any size Ironing board and iron

Parchment paper

Duct tape – optional, for sealing the hole for the hose

Turn your iron on to its hottest setting. I found it was easiest to keep my ironing board flat on the floor so that the weight of the plastic didn’t cause any cooperation issues. Many times, I actually slid my ironing board across the floor instead of moving the plastic.

Roll out your plastic in your largest room, and fold it in half – to the size you want your water blob. Don’t worry about aligning the edges – they will align as you go!

This was my set-up (the right edge is folded over because I couldn’t lay the whole thing flat):

You’ll start out with a long piece of parchment paper. At first, I tried to use a piece that was as long as my ironing board – but it was actually much easier when I cut the paper about 2-feet long.

Fold it in half, length-wise and draw a line about 2-inches out from the fold. This will be your guide of how far into iron.

Begin with the edge of plastic opposite of its fold, starting at the corner. Open up your parchment and place your plastic inside, aligning it to the fold of the parchment.

Then, fold the parchment back over.

Now, use your hot iron to slowly melt the plastic together by running the iron across the line of your parchment. Do not let the iron touch the bare plastic – it will melt a hole in it, and will make a huge mess all over your iron!

Press firmly, but not too hard – because the plastic is hot, it will stretch. You don’t want to weaken the plastic by thinning it out with too much pressure.

Less is more. You can always re-melt the plastic it did not completely seal!

Let it cool for a few seconds before removing the parchment. If you remove the parchment too early – you could risk stretching the plastic. (You could alternate two pieces of parchment, let one cool while the other seals)

Continue to seal all of the edges, overlapping a few inches to make sure there are no holes. After sealing the end opposite of the fold, work from the sealed edge toward the fold. Everything will align perfectly!

Now, carefully cut a small slit in the folded end of the plastic, near the corner.

Place the hose in a few feet, and prop the corner up so that the water does not spill out while you fill your water blob.

Ours took about 30 minutes to fill about 8-inches deep – and we ended up adding some food coloring about half way in. Totally not necessary, but we loved watching the color swirl into the water!

Seal off the hole with a piece of duct tape – or use your iron and parchment to melt the edge! I opted for duct tape because I plan on using it again a few times.

Then let the kids go wild! We sprayed a little water on top to splash on, and they loved it!

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Update 4/16/14: Although not verified, it seems the original source of this awesome idea comes from Play at Home Mom! This post is intended to be a tutorial for my unique way of making it, and I do not take any credit for the idea itself!