Kids Mason Jar Lid Pumpkin

Hello everyone! Here’s a simple, fun fall craft for kids using all those extra mason jar lids.

Supplies:
Mason Jar Lids
Orange Paint
Triple Thick Gloss
Brown Chenille Stems
Green Ribbon
Hot Glue Gun
Glue Sticks
Paint Brush

The first step is to paint your mason jar lids. I used a matte orange color, but anything goes! Glitter, holographic paint, or glow in the dark paint would be fun as well.

After the lids are dry, add a coat of sealant to keep the paint from chipping off. This is especially important if loose glitter was added, to keep the glitter from falling off. It also gives a nice shiny effect.

Once the gloss top coat is dry, use a hot glue gun to glue the lids together.  They can go in any order you’d like! 

Cut about an inch of chenille stem and hot glue it to the back of the lids. I used a tapering portion of the chenille stem to imitate a fat pumpkin stem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cut about a 1 ½ inch of ribbon and fold in half. Put a dot of hot glue to form a loop

Lastly, hot glue the loop of ribbon onto your pumpkin. I put mine in between the top and bottom lid, but again it can go anywhere you’d like.

 

 

 

 

 And you’re done! Enjoy!

Mermaid Tears Potion Ingredient Vial

Hello again, crafters!  Today, I'm going to show you another great use for the shatterproof ornaments that we have at our stores.  Instead of something Christmasy though, we're going to do something a little more... mystical: a potion ingredient vial!

Here's what you'll need.

~ 2 inch shatterproof ornament

~ Glitter-It

~ fine glitter in teal and iridescent white

~ funnel

~ thin cream-colored cardstock

~ fine-tip Sharpie

~ crayon in brown or copper

~ scissors

~cork

~ twine 

~ small starfish (optional)

(And now for those I forgot to include in the picture...)

~ Decopage

~ Paintbrush

~ Hot glue gun 

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Let's get started!

First, take the top off your ornament.  Pour enough Glitter-It into it to coat the inside and swirl around, making sure to get the "shoulders" as well.

Mix the two glitters together and pour into the ornament using the funnel.  Swirl the glitter around for an even coat.  Be careful of lumps!  Set your ornament aside to dry.

Next, sketch label shapes on your piece of card stock.  Mine was about 1 1/2 inches wide and about 3/4 of an inch tall.  Write the name of your potion with the fine tip Sharpie.

After cutting your label out, darken the edges with the crayon and lightly color toward the center of the label for a gradient effect.

Next, brush some decoupage onto the front of your ornament.

Stick your label on and brush even more decoupage on top to seal.  The paper will be a little stiff, so to make sure that the whole label sticks onto the surface of the ornament, saturate it with enough decoupage so that it softens up and "hugs" the curve of the surface.  Let dry.

Pop the cork into the top and wrap the lip of the ornament with twine, finishing it off with a pretty bow!

This part is optional, but to add a little more "ocean" flavor to the piece, I hot-glued a small starfish to the cork.  There you have it! 

It's always fun to think of new uses for the ornaments.  Because Halloween's coming up, why not make a bunch of different potions using the different shapes of shatterproof ornaments we have available at our stores? What ridiculous or mysterious ingredients or potions can you come up with?

Have fun!

Erika @ PC

Pumpkin Bunting

Hey, everyone!  Today, I'm going to be showing you how to make some cute pumpkin bunting.  This is a really easy project that's fun to do with your kids.  

Supplies Needed

Orange Cardstock

Green Cardstock

Brown Cardstock (optional)

Scissors

Double-Stick Tape

Oval Punch (any size you want)

1/8th inch Hole Punch

Twine, Cord or Ribbon

Pencil

Orange Crayon

Paper Scraps are perfect for this! 

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Let's Get Started! 

For one pumpkin, you're going to need to punch out three ovals out of the orange cardstock.

Second, place two ovals next to each other and put double-stick tape on the inner sides of both ovals like so.

Then, stick the third oval right at the center over the tape.  

Next, with the crayon, add some shading to your pumpkin to give it some dimension.  I used the Crayola crayon in the shade Burnt Orange.

 After that, cut a stem and a thin strip of paper no longer than three inches out of the green cardstock.  You could use the brown paper for the stem as well if you prefer a different color.

Attach the stem and strip of paper to the top of the pumpkin with double-stick tape.

Next, curl the strip of paper around a pencil.  You could also used the crayon, but I like how the pencil added some texture.

Lastly, you're going to punch two holes at the top of the pumpkin on either side.  That's pretty much it for your pumpkins.  Now, all you have to do is make as many as you want to string onto your stringing of choice.

After making all your pumpkins, you're going to string them, making sure you pull the twine to the back on one side and then pull it back out on the other.  

There you go!  Aren't they adorable?

These are perfect for decorating scrapbook pages, greeting cards, table settings and even just for window or mantle decor.  You could even draw Jack-o-Lantern faces on them, use different colored paper, add some letters onto each one to spell out a special message!  

As always: Have fun!

Erika @ PC

Pineapple Ornament

Hey, everyone!  Today we're going to be getting a head start on our holiday crafts by making a cute pineapple ornament.  I felt these would be a great way to bring a little bit of summer to our Christmas later this year without reminding us of the hot and humid weather. ;D

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 Let's get started!

Supplies

4 inch shatterproof ornament ball

Glitter Green Foam sheet

Yellow Acrylic Paint

Foam brush

Black Paint Pen

Red Paint Pen

Hot Glue Gun

Scissors

Fine Tip Sharpie

First, take the metal top of the ornament off.  Then, leaving a three inch circular space clear, you're going to paint the ornament yellow.

While the paint is drying, on the back side of your foam sheet, draw a row of leaves about 7 inches long with the Sharpie.  Each leaf should be at least 5/8ths of an inch wide and 2 inches tall.  Cut them out and set aside.  

Don't forget to plug in your hot glue gun at this point as well!

This is the part when it's going to start looking more like a pineapple.  With the black paint pen, draw v-shapes going down from the top of the ornament.  Add a small dot above each V.  This is just one way of stylizing the pineapple's "eyes", but you could also make little "x"s or plus signs.

Next, you're going to hot glue the row of leaves around the top of the ornament.  (You could put the top back on before hot gluing them on, but I will show you why I didn't in a moment.)

Lastly, with your red paint pen, you're going to decorate the clear space at the front of your ornament.  I chose to do some simple hand lettering.  You could doodle as well.  And that's pretty much it! 

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Oh yeah!  What you could do if you leave the top off your pineapple is put string lights into them.  It's a super fun idea for an island-themed tree.  All you have to do is make a few of these pineapples, get a string of lights and stuff about 5-8 lights into each pineapple.  Leave about 10 inches of lights between each pineapple.

Aren't they cute? 

As always, you can add your own touch to this project.  Who says you need to have yellow pineapples?  Experiment with different sizes!  Add some glitter or even use different colored lights!  Of course, don't forget to have fun!

Until Next Time!

Erika@PC