Unless you’re a fan of the Beastie Boys, you probably didn’t get the reference of the blog title. Every time I think or hear the word “crafty”, that song lyric goes through my head. So today as I was being crafty, I pretty much had the entire song on repeat in my brain. I may have felt a little like Martha Stewart, but I was way cooler with the lyrics running through my head.
I had seen pictures of these do it yourself snow globes in the past, but never got around to making them until today. Some of the perks of being an antique dealer is that I pretty much always have a number of old mason jars on hand. Despite my knowledge of the lyrics of Crafty, I am not a terribly crafty person. Actually I’m not really sure if I am, I think I just don’t always have the patience to attempt difficult projects. These jars were not difficult, and they were actually kind of fun to make.
Most of the snow globe jars you see in pictures on-line are with new mason jars. I personally only use antique or vintage jars for any of my projects, but you can use whatever you feel like. So today after buying some bottle brush trees and fake snow, I schlepped through the real snow to my “she shed” and grabbed a few jars to see how these would turn out.
I hadn’t used my glue gun in quite some time, and quickly realized how fast hot glue dries (and hurts). I used some kitchen tongs to hold the trees, put some glue on the bottoms, and placed them where I wanted them in the jar. They won’t move once you stick them so make sure you have a plan. I say that from experience because my lack of patience had me jump right into it without really thinking about what I was doing. When I tried to move them I couldn’t without ripping them off of the base which remained stuck to the jar.
However, after finding myself with two trees without bases it gave me an idea. I ran to the attic trying to find my son’s toy cars, then used some twine to tie the baseless trees to the top of the vehicles. Those were not easy to glue down because the wheels spun when I put them into the jar. It took multiple attempts and lots of glue spots that were thankfully hidden by the snow.
After everything was glued down, I just used a spoon and carefully put the snow around the trees. It was easy, and they are super cute!
And when your son comes home and has a look of shock when you say that you made them, you know they’re impressive!