Neighbor Gifts - Mason Jar Snow Globes

I'm not sure I'll get Christmas cards out this year. It's been a very rough year in a lot of ways, and I've met all my obligations to people and for work, but I think I might let that one go with no guilt. 

However, I did find a quick gift idea for my neighbors, who are all amazing and a pretty tightly knit community. They've also had a hard year. We are all ready to get started on 2019. 

I always make them some sort of handmade gift - one year it was a large paper snowflake tree ornament, one year it was candied jalapenos, one year it was jars of these dreamy mints that Lori Craig found the recipe for. Most of them are bakers, and always make yummy treats for the street. 

This year I decided to make little snowglobe mason jars with candy in them. I figure the candy would last longer if they were overwhelmed with holiday sweets, so here's what they look like finished. 

Each one has a little tree or a figurine.

They're shiny, so it was hard to avoid the glare from my skylight.

Here's how you do them. You need any size of wide-mouth Ball jar. This is the size I used.

Take the lid apart - you will be using the flat insert for the lid to build your scene. But first, take one of these domes and glue it to the lid ring with hot glue. I highly recommend this cordless glue gun for this, because you have to work very fast, and a cord would make it impossible. When I was grabbing the link for this glue gun I love I was shocked to see they are $17 - I think I paid like $60 when they first came out. That's what I get for being an early adopter I guess.

So run a quick bead of hot glue down around the open ring lid and pop the dome on there. Don't worry if it's messy, you'll be covering that up.

Next take the insert for the lid and choose a figurine. Test the height of the figurine by putting it on the insert and putting the insert all the way into the ring/dome combo before committing. I used these figurines, these snowmen, these trees and these trees. I did have to trim some of the trees down, which I did with my die snips. These snips are less than $5 and I use them to cut apart my dies and snip wire, etc.

Then, separate a jumbo cotton ball and put it all around the figurine with hot glue.

The cool thing about this project is hot glue sets so fast, so these are super quick. The longest part is the next step.

Fill the jar with your treats and screw on the lid. (This is where you'll be glad you checked the height of your figurine.)

Take this glitter glue and run it along the outside of the dome - this will hide any lumpy hot glue. I like this glitter glue because it has a cap attached that you don't have to screw on. This part can be a bit messy and I didn't want to mess with taking a cap on and off every time. Also, the size of the bottle reduces hand fatigue - this is a lot of squeezing.

Let that dry and you're all set! Mine took about half an hour.

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Hope you try this. 

Loveyameanitbye.