Remember that one time when it was a week before Christmas and all your gifts were purchased and mailed, and your meals and shopping were planned and you had all your activities lined up and ready to go for when your kids start winter break tomorrow? Yeah, me neither 🙂
But, today’s post has a couple of kid-friendly ideas for you, and info about some giveaways at the end. And who doesn’t love that!
First up are these glitter animals in waterless snow globes. There are several tutorials around for these, and I think I just morphed a few in what we came up with.
Here’s what we used:
Plastic animals (found a jungle set at Fred Meyer for $1.50)
Mod Podge and small paint brushes
Glitter
Acrylic spray sealer (if you have it–I had some already from another project and it definitely helps the glitter stay on, but it’s not necessary to run out and buy a can if you won’t use it for anything else)
Empty jars with lids (we used pickle jars and a broth base jar)
Epsom Salt
Fake pine branches
Red berries from a garland
Hot Glue
Small plastic caps
Here’s how we made them:
Prepare jars by removing labels. Soak the whole jar in warm soapy water for a couple of hours and they should peel right off.
Prepare animals by painting with Mod Podge then covering with glitter. Each of my kids helped with this part (ages 4-8) and I sped the drying with my hair dryer. Then spray with acrylic sealer (I did this myself outside, and again, used the hair dryer)
Make the pine trees. I originally planned to buy the little fake trees at the dollar store that they had near their miniature village displays. But, you know how it goes, if you don’t grab it from the dollar store when you first see it, when you go back it will all be gone!
So I clipped off section of a plastic garland I had and trimmed the top so it tapered a little like a tree, then hot glued red berries I pulled off from another garland.
To assemble, I glued a plastic cap to the inside of a jar lid (to give some height) and glued the glittered animal on top of it. Then I glued in the little tree, making sure to keep everything near the center of the lid so nothing would interfere with it screwing on the jar later. When the glue has cooled, pour a few tablespoons of Epsom salt into the jar. Screw the lid onto the jar and turn the whole thing over. Shake the salt around to the bottom and check if you need more or less in there.
And that’s it!
For another decoration that kids can help with, check out the candy cane art I’m sharing at One Creative Mommy today.
And today is the last day to enter her giveaway too with gift cards to Bath and Body Works, Harry and David, Amazon and other great prizes.
Click here to see the first post of the series and enter the giveaway
