craft jar kiddie gift

Lately I've been having fun thinking of ways I can create gifts that are cute, inexpensive and fun. I decided to turn one of Sophia's favourite activities (crafty collage) into a birthday gift for one of her little friends. It's a smaller version of her collage box--I decided to go for a jar.











It was a simple process--predominantly gathering and packaging--and as inexpensive as you want it to be. Seashells, sand, cotton balls, buttons, scrap fabric, magazine and newspaper pages or pages from old torn children's books are perfect additions. Things you can find around the house. I bought a little tub of glitter and a tube of PVA to accompany all the fun little bits to stick and scatter.

I raided Mum's old jar box (mental note to self to save used jars) and chopped out large confetti circles out of construction paper, newspaper and old beat-up picture books. I used my handy dandy circle stampers to do this, which took all of five minutes, however for Sophia's kit we spent an afternoon making paper dolly chains etc by hand and filling a jar with them.











To cover the tops of the jars, cut out a circle of fabric and make little snips a cm or so apart around the circumference of the jar lid. Spray glue the fabric, pull it over the lip and stick down smoothly. Or another option is to use a bit of Mod Podge and effectively paper mache over the lid with it.

















For the large jar, I stamped out the label onto calico, cut it out and spray glued it on to a large piece of fabric, then glued that piece as well and wrapped it around the jar.

















I filled one little jar up with buttons, and another with paper confetti. I wrapped a few other additions in little plastic bags, however I suspect that all the bits and pieces will end up mixed together in the jar after it has been used a few times. I had fun packaging the pieces individually for the gift though. I grabbed a few twist ties and pulled the plastic coating off the wire. I then spray glued two little strips of fabric and placed the wire between them to create a fabric twist tie. (This is a great way to present baking as a gift also. Check out the DIY here for a quick and easy version using patterned tape.)

















Bundle all the little packaged bits and pieces together into the jar and attach a gift tag (I used a piece of fabric and spray glued it onto card). Voila, simple gift complete. And a good one too--anything that encourages art play and imagination has my vote for kids.









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