The colored sand kits are designed to be done in their boxes. Each box has a small hole in a corner for excess sand to be funneled back into the containers. The process is easy to do to get consistently good results. Place desired activity piece in box, use pealing tool to peal off first location for sand, take colored sand for that location and gently tap enough to cover the location on the activity piece. Then tilt and tap box to move excess to the bottom of the box. Position sand container for that color near the hole and tap sand to hole and into the container.