Jam Jar Gifts: Part 1

Hello friends! So today is part one of a new project that I've been working on, some jam jar gifts! I bought a ridiculous amount of small glass jars from Hobby Lobby last year to use as wedding favors. I ended up buying too many and have been trying to find out the best thing to do with them. Similar to the idea of my box gifts that I just made several blogs about, I thought it would be nice to cutify the jars, fill them with something, and have a quick little gift to sell at craft fairs. My thought at the moment is to fill the jars with candy, but I won't do that until closer to craft fair season. I am doing three styles of jars and eight of each style for a total of twenty-four. The first style that I worked on was Christmas theme. I started on these a while ago and wasn't aware that I'd be doing a full-blown blog on them, so I don't have any pictures of the process! My bad. Below is a picture of how they look so far. Take a peek and then I'll explain what I've done!

Using hot glue and Superglue, I attached some adorable little tree, snowmen and deer figures that were purchased at deep clearance at a store that I can't recall! Maybe Michaels?? If you're wondering why the combo of Superglue and hot glue, sometimes hot glue can peel off when used on a nonporous surface such as metal. If you put a dab of Superglue down before the hot glue, this ensures that the hot glue will not peel away when dried. after the little figurines were attached, I used red homemade chalk paint to paint the covers of the jars. I know I've explained this at-home chalk paint hack before in a blog but the summary is: take paint and add baking soda. Voila, you have chalk paint. My mother suggested I add some kind snow effect to make the figures look a bot more like they are sitting on a snowy mountain as opposed to a red desert. I'll be doing that in the Part 2! I'm going to try and make a very thick at-home white chalk paint and see if it mimics snow. There is a brand of paint (Deco-Art) that sells a thick, bumpy textured white paint which is meant to mimic snow (see below) and I'm thinking I can get a similar look on my own. These jars will also be getting a tag which we will work on in Part 2.

As I mentioned earlier, I had started on these Christmas jars quite a while ago without really knowing that I'd continue the theme to additional jars. Once I decided that I wanted to make a few more styles, my mother and I went on a little shopping day that took us to Dollar Tree, Hobby Lobby and Michaels. I was looking for more little figurines similar to the Christmas ones, but any that I found were very expensive or just not the style that I was looking for. My mother and I then put our heads together to think about what we might have at home or be able to make. We came up with shells and birthday boxes.

As I am terrible at math and measurements, my lovely mother was kind enough to make a template for me which allowed me to make some little boxes out of cardstock.

Once these boxes were made, I wrapped them in paper and added some ribbon and a tiny tag to make them look like real birthday gifts.

Using the hot glue and Superglue method, I attached these boxes to the tops of the jars. I have also collected a ridiculous amount of shells over the course of my life and picked out 8 nice ones to attach to the other 8 jars. This time I just used hot glue as there were only a few points of contact between the shells and jar. Before you ask, I will be painting the lids of the jars with the shells and boxes. Although it may have made more sense to paint them before gluing everything on, I was worried that that glue would not adhere well to the paint and would just pull away the paint, so I now get the fun task of painting painstakingly around the objects that are already glued :)

Next week we will be diving deeper into how I finish up the covers of these jars and add some tags, as well as what candies I'm planning to add in each.

Would you buy a little jam jar gift for a coworker or friend? Let me know if the comments below!
 
 - Rebecca