Monday's can be rough... But I'm here to help.

In celebration of my 15th year selling my handmade stuff...

I am going to be featuring things I've seen on blogs, on the internet, in books

...wherever inspiration strikes! On making new items from old goods..

hence, MondayUPs (upcycling)...

***

Well... it's my final MondayUPs post for the year...

and it's been fun.

For this post; I wanted to do something a little "closer to home",

and so I am going to show you a project that I did myself for gifts this year.

Because we had a (very) limited budget; and alot of people to find gifts for;

we decided on making snowglobes/glitterglobes... just like those you probably made when you were a kid.

Total cost of this craft; was $1.78 per globe

---which didn't take into account the little Lego toys I put inside the globes.

I have a ton of Legos... as we are all a bit "Lego-crazy" here;

and so I just re-purposed ones I had that I thought the receiver of the globe would like.

Materials:

Plastic or ceramic figurines: I used LEGOs.
Glass jar- I used small baby food jars
1 can of silver spray paint
Sandpaper
Clear-drying epoxy
Glitter
Glycerin

Directions:

I cleaned out all my baby food jars (small ones are 77 cents each at my local grocery store), and sterilized them in the dishwasher to make sure they were clean and dry. Then I sanded the lids; and spray-painted them... and set them aside to dry. To help remove the adhesive from the labels on the jars, I used Goo Gone.

Sand the inside of the lid until the surface is rough. With clear-drying epoxy, adhere the figurine to the inside of the lid, and let the epoxy dry. I used 5 minute epoxy. I tried a "practice" lid with E-6000 glue... but it took forever to dry. I am told you can also use a glue gun; but I don't have one. The main point here; is to make sure you use a waterproof glue... and allow the toy to thoroughly dry to the lid before moving on to the next step.

Fill the jar almost to the top with distilled water. I have read many different directions for this craft; and most all say to use distilled water; as tap water can discolor with age. Add a pinch of glitter --some directions on the web want you to use as much as 1/2 tsp of glitter per globe. I used 1/4 tsp.... and it was still probably too much. I also noted on several sites; that it was best to use only silver glitter; as the colored glitters can change the water over time... who knows... but I prefer silver anyway :)
Then, add several drops of glycerin to the water/glitter. This helps the glitter to not clump; or get stuck on the bottom. Screw the lid on tightly; being careful to not dislodge the figurine.

Then shake to make it SNOW.

((on an aside. Some directions will tell you to glue the lid on shut... others will not.
I chose to not glue them shut so that we could refill the water if needed sometime down the road))