Snow-Globes-R-Us

I was reading an article in the 20th Anniversary edition of Martha Stewart's Living magazine and saw this project for Snow Globes.  Talk about cute, inexpensive, recycled goodness!  All of my errant, random jars could be repurposed and, at the same time, we could whittle down Grady's ever-growing small animal and figurine collections.  Add a little thrifted glitter and we have ourselves a very sweet handmade gift crafted by Grady.

We used what we had, but I would definitely use smaller jars in the future - such as baby food, pimiento or small olive jars.  Also, use plastic or ceramic figurines (it's suggested that metal ones are prone to rust).  

Some of the lids weren't attractive enough, so the guys used our handy-dandy silver spray paint.  You could use any color spray paint and I think I'll use red for the next batch of globes, so that it looks a little more festive.  Next up was sanding the inside of the lid until surface is rough.  With clear-drying epoxy, adhere the figurines inside of the lid and let it dry.  Important:  You should probably glue a base down for your figurines to stand on and elevate them just a little bit.  This will help them stand a little taller and be seen a little better.

Fill the jar almost to the top with distilled water (we boiled ours); add a pinch of glitter (we used red & silver) and a dash of glycerin (we had this on hand from our homemade kahlua distilling) to keep the glitter from falling too quickly. 

Screw the lid on tightly and be careful not to dislodge the figurine.  Turn the jar over and back again and watch it snow! 

Now we had to wrap them up.  I decided to iron a stack of vintage handkerchiefs I had been stockpiling in my kitchen drawer.

Grady assisted in filling out the tags (my paint chip samples, again) and then we slipped them into a cellophane bag and tied with mustard-colored twine.

They looked so pretty when we were done and everything about this project was repurposed and thoughtfully placed in the jars by Grady, along with the help of his father.

We have asked our neighbors for their extra small glass jars and I look forward to round two at our snow-globe-making-facility (aka - Steve's garage) while we endure countless days of rain ahead of us.  Snow.  Rain.  Either way, we're happy to bottle it up and shake it all around.