Red, White, Blue, Masks and Glitter Too

Ever wonder what you can do with your jelly jars besides tossing them in your recycle bin?  Well I usually use them to keep my kids paint brushes in, my drawing pencils, or like my grandma, fill them with buttons.  She used to use the prettiest jelly jars for her buttons which was something she loved. I love glass jars, something about the crystal clear shine and reflection of colors bouncing off the glass.  Love it!

This project took me a while, mainly because I have two toddlers, So I set them in front of Barney (The Purple Dinosaur, NOT the guy on HIMYM!).  That kept them preoccupied for 20 minutes.  After you have used up all the jelly in your jar, run it through the dish cycle and scrap the paper and glue off the sides.  I use my fingernails, warm water and a scrub sponge. It took me 5 minutes a jar to make sure they were crystal clear with no smudges.  Then I set them aside and made the white container with blue flowers you see above.  I thought of waiting and looking at a yard sale for a wooden box, but when I was figuring out what size I needed and opened up the cardboard box, well ideas started flowing.  Now a box can cost you anywhere from 0.05$ - 50.00$ depending where you get it, so it can be really cheap if you patiently look at yard sales and thrift stores. Now to start the box project with what you may have around your home. 

 

 

supplies

supplies

1. 9 x 2 x 4(LxHxW) cardboard box ( the box your pictures come in from snapfish works perfect) 
2. Fabric to cover your box
3. 3- 1"x6" strips for the flower petals
4. 3- 1/2"x3" strips for the center (stigma) of your flower
5. 3- 12oz. jelly jars 
6. glue gun and extra glue sticks
7. Craft Glue  
8. Paint Brush
9. Craft scissors and fabric scissors
10. marking pencils (make sure if you are using white fabric you use a light colored marking pencil so it does not show through the fabric. ) 

1. If you are using a snapfish box cut the flap lid off, you will be left with the box.

2. Break down the box so it looks like this(it comes apart very easy)  and lay it on the wrong side(side without the pattern) of your fabric and trace around the box leaving 3 inches on the wider sides to fold into the inner flap

3. Start gluing from the bottom and line up the box with the traced frame.  smooth out the fabric on the bottom and continue this step on all sides and on the two inner flaps folding over the extra fabric.  then refold the box to look like this:

 To make the flowers go to these 2 links: the blue flower and the white center , I hot glued the flowers starting with the center flower and then added the white with a bit of hot glue. 

Blueberries and Cream

After this was snack time and the kids made there own craft that they saw on their show. 

 They had so much fun and they got to scare daddy when he came home, ha ha. It was a good day and this kept them busy for at least 20 minutes. That wasn't the end of our busy day but we will post more tomorrow.